Press Releases — 2019

ESA invites media to a start of year press conference laying out plans for the new budget committed to by Member States at Space19+ and looking ahead at 2020. ESA Director General Jan Wörner and ESA Directors will meet the media at the ESA headquarters in Paris on the morning of Wednesday, 15 January 2020.

ESA’s Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, has concluded in Seville, Spain, with the endorsement of the most ambitious plan to date for the future of ESA and the whole European space sector. The meeting brought together ministers with responsibility for space activities in Europe, along with Canada and observers from the EU.

The ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Space 19+ -  www.esa.int/space19plus, will take place at FIBES in Seville, Spain, on 27 and 28 November 2019. 

ESA’s new Sun explorer will leave Europe soon, with final launch preparations starting in November at Cape Canaveral in Florida, US. ESA and Airbus Defence and Space invite members of the media to get a final glimpse of Solar Orbiter on 18 October at IABG’s space test centre in Ottobrunn, near Munich, Germany, before the spacecraft departs for the launch site.

As World Space Week (4-10 October) approaches, ESA invites the next generation of space professionals to give their opinions about the future of space.

Media registrations are now open for ESA’s Open Day in the Netherlands on Sunday 6 October – the general public and media will have the opportunity to meet astronauts, space experts and see behind the scenes of Europe’s space adventure at ESA’s largest establishment.

Experts working on an upcoming joint space mission designed to deflect and analyse asteroids will meet in Rome from 11–13 September. Media are invited to join the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA) workshop in the "Aula Ottagona" of the Terme di Diocleziano in Rome to hear the latest progress on NASA’s DART mission, Italy’s LICIA CubeSat and ESA’s Hera mission.

Media are invited to the Φ-Week (with ‘Φ’, phi, pronounced ‘fee’ or ‘fi’), a five-day international event organised by ESA on the latest developments of relevance to space, to be hosted at its Earth observation centre in Frascati, Italy, from 9-13 September 2019.

The second satellite to join the constellation that forms the European Data Relay System (EDRS) was launched by Arianespace on 06 August, 21:30 CEST (19:30 UTC).  The satellite was launched on board an Ariane 5, together with a second passenger, Intelsat 39, from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 

A constellation of European astronauts, epic music under the stars and a live connection with the International Space Station will kick off the Stockholm Culture Festival at the height of the Scandinavian summer. Space is this year’s theme of the Stockholm Culture Festival, a mass event that takes over central Stockholm, Sweden, from 13 to 17 August. 

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano has arrived at the International Space Station on his ‘Beyond’ mission, marking the start of Expedition 60.

The 53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget will open its doors on Monday, 17 June 2019 and run until Sunday, 23 June. ESA will present its programmes in an innovative digital exhibition located, as in the past, between two full-scale models of the Ariane 1 and Ariane 5 launchers near the permanent Air and Space Museum.

The meeting of the 9th EU-ESA Space Council will take place between 11:15 and 13:00 on Tuesday 28 May 2019, debating the theme ‘Space as an enabler’. Members of the media are invited to attend a press conference at 13:15 at the LEX Building in Brussels, where Spain’s Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities Pedro Duque and Nicolae Hurduc, Minister for Research and Innovation of Romania will speak.The press conference will also be streamed online on the EU’s website. ESA Director General Jan Wörner will be available for comment following the presentation by the ministers of their conclusion of the Space Council.The Space Council was established to coordinate and facilitate cooperative activities between the European Community and ESA through their Framework Agreement, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in May 2004. ESA and the EU signed their ‘Joint Statement on Shared Vision and Goals for the Future of European Space’ in 2016.The meeting takes place on the margins of the EU Competitiveness Council, where ministers will also have a policy debate on the EU’s role in global space policy.  

Media are invited to join ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano on Saturday, 11 May, at ESRIN, ESA’s establishment  in Frascati near Rome, Italy, for his final news conference in Europe before his second mission to the International Space Station.

ESA invites media representatives to join the Living Planet Symposium, the biggest Earth observation conference in the world, to hear first-hand from scientists about recent environmental discoveries and the latest hard facts on climate change – don’t miss this exciting opportunity.

The Cheops mission, ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of exoplanets, is scheduled to lift off on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, within the launch slot 15 October – 14 November 2019.

Whether it's tackling the challenge of space debris, ensuring a timely warning of space weather impacts or detecting and deflecting asteroids: Space Safety is an emerging field and will be included in the proposals of ESA Director General Jan Wörner for the next Ministerial Council, called ‘Space19+’, in November 2019.