News

News

ESA welcomes Webb in French Guiana for launch on Ariane 5
12 October 2021

The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived safely at Pariacabo harbour in French Guiana. ESA in close collaboration with NASA will now prepare this once in a generation mission for its launch on Ariane 5 from Europe's Spaceport this December.

Targeted launch date for Webb: 18 December 2021
8 September 2021

ESA, NASA and Arianespace have jointly defined 18 December 2021 as the target launch date for Ariane 5 flight VA256. This third Ariane 5 launch of 2021 will fly the James Webb Space Telescope to space from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Webb passes key launch clearance review
1 July 2021

The international James Webb Space Telescope has passed the final mission analysis review for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Unique exoplanet photobombs CHEOPS study of nearby star system
28 June 2021

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.

12 rare Einstein crosses discovered with Gaia
7 April 2021

Thanks to ESA's star mapping spacecraft Gaia and machine learning, astronomers have discovered 12 quasars whose light is so strongly deflected by foreground galaxies that they are each visible as four distinct images, called an 'Einstein cross'.

ESA's exoplanet watcher CHEOPS reveals unique planetary system
25 January 2021

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.

Euclid's optical and infrared instruments integrated in spacecraft
21 December 2020

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.

Gaia's new data takes us to the Milky Way's anticentre and beyond
3 December 2020

The motion of stars in the outskirts of our galaxy hints at significant changes in the history of the Milky Way. This and other equally fascinating results come from a set of papers that demonstrate the quality of ESA's Gaia Early third Data Release (EDR3), which is made public today.

Latest Announcements

Latest Announcements

Selection of the first James Webb Space Telescope General Observer Scientific Programmes
30 March 2021

The General Observer scientific observations for the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's first year of operation have been selected. Proposals from ESA member states comprise 33% of the total number of selected proposals and correspond to 30% of the available telescope time on Webb.

CHEOPS AO-2 Programmes
25 February 2021

Observing time on CHEOPS in the Guest Observers Programme has been awarded to nine proposals received in response to the CHEOPS second Announcement of Opportunity (AO-2).

 

CHEOPS Discretionary Programme is now open
17 July 2020

Proposals are invited for the CHEOPS Discretionary Programme, an element of the Guest Observers Programme which enables scientists to propose observations of individual targets that have been discovered, or declared to be of high scientific merit, since the close of AO-1 back in mid-May 2019.

Latest Articles

Latest Articles

Shedding light on white dwarfs – the future of stars like our Sun
17 May 2019ESA's Gaia mission has been busy mapping our Milky Way galaxy since 2014, and just over one year ago released its second batch of data on more than one billion stars. Since then, astronomers have been exploring this catalogue to reveal a huge amount of new information about the cosmos. One type of object that has seen an abundance of new...
Rethinking everything we thought we knew about star clusters
26 February 2019ESA's Gaia satellite is on a mission: to map and characterise more than one billion of the stars in the Milky Way. Many of these stars reside in complex, eye-catching clusters scattered throughout our Galaxy and, by studying these stellar groupings, Gaia is revealing much about the formation and evolution of stars in our cosmic home and...

Spacecraft Testing

Spacecraft Testing

#1: Euclid completes thermal-vacuum balance tests
10 October 2019

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.

 

#17: Practice makes perfect for CHEOPS inflight operations
25 June 2019It takes collaboration and teamwork to operate a spacecraft. As the CHEOPS launch approaches, a Europe-wide team is preparing to take control of inflight activities once the satellite is in space.
#14: Tests, moving to a new home, and more tests
4 June 2018In the last year, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and in particular the telescope and the instruments have passed some key milestones on their road towards launch, now planned for 2020.
1-Jun-2024 09:19 UT

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