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!
The SubOrbital Express-4 team poses next to the rocket a few days before launch.
The SubOrbital Express-4 sounding rocket was successfully launched from the Esrange Space Center outside Kiruna, in the north of Sweden, at 06:00 CET on 26 November 2024. The rocket reached an altitude of 256 km before falling back to Earth and providing approximately six minutes of microgravity to six scientific experiments onboard.
After a night full of suspense due to challenging weather conditions, three ESA experiments soared to new heights in one of the most anticipated rocket launches of the year from Esrange, owned and operated by the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC).
The ESA experiments ranged from studies on the human immune system, technology to build more efficient solar cells and bouncing hexapods to understand the formation of the Universe.