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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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet configures equipment for an experiment called GRIP that studies astronauts' perception of mass and movement and how they interface with the human body and change in microgravity.
Thomas recently shared this image on his social media channels saying:"An old friend of mine: the ESA GRIP experiment! On my first parabolic flight in 2010, we took part in a safety analysis of the hardware, then during my first flight in 2017 I performed the on-orbit commissioning. It has been going strong since with 6 subjects (including ESA astronauts @astro_alex_esa and @astro_luca), and I should be one of the last ones! It is complex, with lots of cables… always hard to manage when you’re free-floating. The experiment is under the responsibility of CADMOS, the French User Operations Centre based in Toulouse. They do an excellent job of sorting out the cables and telling us what goes where."
Follow Thomas and his Mission Alpha on his blog.