ESA Science & Technology - Cosmic Vision

While exploring two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, ESA's exoplanet-hunting CHEOPS satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system's third known planet crossing the face of the star. This transit reveals exciting details about a rare planet "with no known equivalent", say the researchers.

EnVision will be ESA's next Venus orbiter, providing a holistic view of the planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently.

ESA's exoplanet mission CHEOPS has revealed a unique planetary system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythmic dance as they orbit their central star. The sizes and masses of the planets, however, don't follow such an orderly pattern.

The optical and infrared instruments of Euclid, ESA's mission to study dark energy and dark matter in space, have passed their qualification and acceptance reviews and are now fully integrated into the spacecraft's payload module.

Solar Orbiter's latest results show that the mission is making the first direct connections between events at the solar surface and what's happening in interplanetary space around the spacecraft. It is also giving us new insights into solar 'campfires', space weather and disintegrating comets.

ESA's exoplanet mission Ariel, scheduled for launch in 2029, has moved from study to implementation phase, following which an industrial contractor will be selected to build the spacecraft.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS/JAXA) have announced their decision to no longer consider the infrared space observatory, SPICA, as a candidate for the upcoming selection as ESA's 5^th medium-class mission in its Cosmic Vision...

ESA has released its first Solar Orbiter data to the scientific community and the wider public. The instruments contributing to this data release come from the suite of in-situ instruments that measure the conditions surrounding the spacecraft.

The development of ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) is continuing apace and has hit milestones in recent months: the spacecraft's 10.6-metre-long boom is now attached, many instruments have been integrated, and the mission's high-gain antenna has arrived and undergone rigorous vibration testing.

All ten flight model solar panels for ESA's JUICE spacecraft have been delivered to Airbus Defence and Space Netherlands ready to be integrated into solar wings. The solar panels, with a total area of 85 m², are a key element of the mission, providing the necessary power to run the spacecraft and operate the science instruments.

This is the first entry in the Euclid Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Structural and Thermal Model (STM) and Flight Model (FM) of the spacecraft.