About ESA
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.
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Space in Member States
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
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Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Logos on Orion
The space agency logos for the next spacecraft to head to the Moon have been added to Orion as part of the Artemis programme.
ESA’s logo reflects our European nature and our pioneering activities in space. It incorporates the only element of ESA’s name common to all languages of Member States - the letter ‘e’ for European, which is symbol of cooperation and human dimension. Europe is represented by a circular ‘e’, superimposed on the globe that represents our planet Earth. The white dot represents a satellite in orbit. This symbol also incorporates the visionary side of space exploration and today is synonymous with a united Europe in space.
NASA’s ‘worm’ design was officially introduced in 1975 and was incorporated into many of the agency’s next-generation programmes. It was retired in 1992, but made a comeback in 2020 as a new, modern era of human spaceflight becomes reality.
Orion will display the logos on the first Artemis Orion spacecraft. The worm image, along with ESA’s logo, were cut into flightproof decals by the Launch Equipment Shop at the Kennedy Space Center and adhered to the underside of Orion’s crew module adapter.
ESA is providing the European Service Module for Orion, which is the powerhouse that fuels and propels the spacecraft. These bold images will be seen from cameras at the end of Orion’s solar arrays as the spacecraft travels toward the Moon.
