After a 24-hour journey from Bremen, Germany with stops in Hamburg and Portsmouth, USA, the European Service Module landed on 6 November 2018 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The shipment from Bremen to Florida is just the beginning – the first leg of an exciting journey that will boost the spacecraft to lunar orbit and back.

The first service module is a key component that will see Orion around the Moon for Exploration Mission-1. It will make the powerful burns required to enter and exit lunar orbit as well as softer burns to allow for space manoeuvring and course correction.

After years of designing, building, and testing in Europe, the powerhouse that will propel NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon will be mated with the rest of the spacecraft to undergo final testing before flight.

ESA’s partnership with NASA takes the European effort to the global stage. For the first time, NASA will use a European-built system as a critical element to power an American spacecraft, extending the international cooperation of the International Space Station into deep space.