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
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Over the last four years, ESA’s Aeolus mission has been delivering unique profiles of Earth’s winds from space, improving operational weather forecasts, climate models and more – all showing that its novel laser technology is advancing science and being used for important practical applications. Adding to the list of Aeolus’ successes, a recent report highlights that the mission has also brought economics benefits to Europe to the tune of €3.5 billion and that a follow-on Aeolus-2 mission could benefit the European economy by €7.1 billion, so more than double that of the current Aeolus.
Aeolus-2 is included in the Earth Observation Proposal at ESA’s upcoming Council at Ministerial Level. It would be a prime example of an Earth Explorer research mission providing sound heritage to develop an operational mission – a mission that delivers systematic data for environmental or weather services. In this case, the development of a new wind lidar system will be carried out in cooperation with European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, Eumetsat.