The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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As an essential contribution before testing began, ESA flew a drone to map the location, producing digital elevation models down to a resolution of 4 cm. This ‘ground truthing’ was needed to compare rover data with observed reality. The combination of ESA’s map and the data collected by the different rovers constitutes the largest analogue test dataset ever made and it will be used to validating algorithms for ESA’s own activities.