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.
Highlights
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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
Luxembourg
Norway
The Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Czechia
Romania
United Kingdom
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland
Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicAstronauts
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Navigating in space
ESA’s Flight Dynamics team uses cutting-edge computational techniques to plan, determine and control complex spacecraft trajectories. They apply fundamental physics and mathematics to 21st century spacecraft orbiting Earth and voyaging deep into our Solar System.
The Flight Dynamics team delivers precise orbital determinations enabling ground controllers to know where the spacecraft are located and prepare the manoeuvres to reach their targets like the Moon, Mars, Venus, a comet or a spacecraft constellation. The Flight Dynamics team also conducts mission analysis — they brainstorm about how robotic spacecraft can reach and return data from anywhere in the Solar System.
Flight dynamics scientists work as part of the team operating every ESA mission, whether in low-Earth orbit or soaring deep into our Solar System. They provide precise orbital calculations, determining where the spacecraft are located, which direction they’re facing, where they’re going and how far they've travelled.
This information is vital and is used every day not only by the mission controllers but also by supporting teams such as the Estrack station engineer, who have to know where to point their tracking antennas, what time to start ‘listening’ for a signal and how long a spacecraft will be visible.
