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’s new Sun-explorer, Solar Orbiter, will capture close-up images of never before seen regions of our parent star, including the poles, and study the electromagnetic environment in its vicinity. The cutting-edge spacecraft will get as close as 42 million kilometres away from the Sun, about a quarter of the distance between the Sun and Earth, and face scorching temperatures of up to 500°C.
ESA has a long history of studying the Sun from space. Since the launch of Ulysses in 1990, the agency has led or cooperated on several Sun-exploring missions including SOHO, the Cluster quartet and Proba-2.
The video provides a summary of ESA’s past and present Sun-exploring ventures, which have transformed our understanding of the star.
The A and B roll features ESA’s archive material tracing the agency’s past missions to the Sun.
The B roll contains new cleanroom footage showing the early stages of integration of Solar Orbiter into the upper stage of the Atlas V launcher.
The B-roll also contains newly re-digitised ESA archive material.