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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Playing Pong with video game classic SpaceBok. To simulate the vanishingly low gravity of asteroids, the SpaceBok team made use of the flattest floor in the Netherlands – a 4.8 x 9 m epoxy floor smoothed to an overall flatness within 0.8 mm, called the Orbital Robotics Bench for Integrated Technology (ORBIT), part of ESA’s Orbital Robotics and Guidance Navigation and Control Laboratory. SpaceBok was placed on its side, then attached to a free-floating platform to reproduce zero-G conditions in two dimensions. When jumping off a wall its reaction wheel allowed it to twirl around mid-jump, letting it land feet first again on the other side of the chamber – as if it was jumping along a scaled-down single low-gravity surface.