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.
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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
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Artemis I crawler timelapse
This timelapse video shows NASA’s mega-Moon rocket with Orion and the European Service Module inside on its crawler at dusk.
While the rocket will propel Orion to supersonic speeds, the rocket itself is moved slowly but securely to the launchpad. These scenes have been sped up on average 20 times faster than actual speeds, with the shots of at the end 50 times faster. Traveling at a maximum speed of just 1.3 km/h, the 6.5-km voyage is a careful process.
At 100 m tall, the SLS rocket is roughly the height of the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) in London, UK, or 16 giraffes stacked on top of each other. If you laid the rocket on the ground, it would take over a minute to walk from the engines to the tip of the launch abort system.
At the top of the rocket is the Orion spacecraft including its European Service Module that will be launched to the Moon and back. This mission called Artemis I will not carry a crew but will instead be controlled from the ground.
ESA has designed and is overseeing the development of Orion’s service module, the part of the spacecraft that supplies air, electricity and propulsion. Much like a train engine pulls passenger carriages and supplies power, the European Service Module will take the Orion capsule to its destination and back.
