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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In April, ESA sought proposals on how space assets can help understand and characterise the paralysing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The joint first prize in this contest has been awarded to a proposal on how Copernicus Sentinel-2 images can reveal coronavirus-related effects on traffic activity – an idea that will be included in the recently created ESA-European Commission 'Rapid Action on Coronavirus and Earth Observation' dashboard. This image shows the mapping of reflectance patterns of long moving vehicles (such as trucks), as proposed by joint contest winner Henrik Fisser (Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany). The traffic maps show Romania (upper left, data from 2 April 2020), Poland (upper right, data from 7 April 2020), Italy (Rome, bottom left, data from 3 April 2020), and Spain (Madrid, bottom right, data from 10 June 2020).
Read more: Monitoring trucks and trade from space