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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ESA reentry expertise
Every week, on average, a substantial, inert satellite drops into our atmosphere and burns up. Monitoring these reentries and warning European civil authorities has become routine work for ESA’s space debris experts.
Each year, about 100 tonnes of defunct satellites, uncontrolled spacecraft, spent upper stages and discarded items like instrument covers are dragged down by Earth’s upper atmosphere, ending their lives in flaming arcs across the sky.
Some of these objects are big and chunky, and pieces of them survive the fiery reentry to reach the surface. Our planet, however, is a big place, mostly covered by water, and much of what falls down is never seen by anyone, sinking to the bottom of some ocean, or landing far from human habitation.
While still in orbit, these and many other objects are tracked by a US military radar network, which shares the data with ESA, since Europe has no such capability of its own.
It’s the task of ESA’s Space Debris team to look at these data and issue updates to ESA Member States and partner civil authorities around the globe.
More information
More information
http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience - regular reentry updates and FAQ
http://www.esa.int/spacedebris
https://www.fhr.fraunhofer.de
