ESA - European Space Agency

Elodie Viau, ESA's Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, talks about the agency's plans for a constellation of satellites around the Moon

The SEOSAT-Ingenio GO/NOGO roll call in the Main Control Room at ESOC, ESA's European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany. The roll call was conducted by Flight Director Juan Piñeiro at 01:22 CET, just 90 minutes before planned lift off at 02:52 CET, 17 November 2020. Image credit: ESA/D Mesples SEOSAT-Ingenio was to have entered an orbit at an altitude of roughly 670 km. From there, it wo...

One of the first engineers to work on Spacelab Alan Thirkettle talks hosts Ally and Stephen through the unexpected challenges and memorable moments of building a science laboratory for space. This unique European-built research facility flew inside NASA's Space Shuttle. It enabled the first flight of a non-American astronaut on a NASA spacecraft in 1983. It also paved the way for ESA's current lab...

In episode one of the ESA Explores Time and Space series, we explore the early days of Soviet spaceflight in conversation with Romania's first cosmonaut Dorin Prunariu. Dorin was one of 11 Europeans to fly under Russia's Interkosmos programme. In 1978, this programme saw the first European - Czech cosmonaut Vladimir Remek - become the first non-Russian or American to fly to space.

ESA astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Matthias Maurer take the time to chat while training for upcoming missions to the International Space Station missions at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, USA. This audio was originally a four-part video series filmed in June 2020. You can watch the full series on ESA's YouTube channel.

We speak to an astronomer who spends his day studying the motions of ancient asteroids as they roam around the Solar System. If one of them poses a threat, he'll be one of the first to know, and would provide us with the information we would need to act. In this episode, Marco Micheli tells us how many asteroids we know of, how many he is currently worried about, and what we could do to prevent an...

After a brief shutdown of science instruments and a period in ‘safe standby’, ESA’s planetary missions are getting back to what they do best – gathering science data from around the Solar System. We speak to Paolo Ferri, Head of Mission Operations at ESA’s mission control centre in Germany, and Markus Kissler-Patig, Head of Science and Operations at the Agency’s ESAC Astronomy Centre in Spain. Pao...

Just a short time after returning from 201 days in orbit on the International Space Station as part of his Beyond mission, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano talks to Ally Koehler about his Beyond mission and life back on Earth.

Science advisor Dr Aidan Cowley works with students and researchers on ideas that could shape the way we go forward to the Moon. In this episode, he discusses an initiative called Spaceship EAC, the future of space exploration and an alternative use for your kitchen microwave as ESA looks beyond Low Earth Orbit.

GO/NOGO roll call recorded on 10 Feb 2020 at ESA's Mission Control Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Flight Director Andrea Accomazzo polled all engineers in the Main Control Room to confirm their readiness for the launch of Solar Orbiter, set for 05:03 CET.

As Luca's six months in space draws to a close, ESA Explores hosts chat to flight surgeon Maybritt Kuypers about the medical challenges of returning an astronaut to Europe from the International Space Station.

The festive season is in full force. Find out how astronauts celebrate special occasions on the Space Station with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, BME/Eurocom coordinator for ESA Andrea Boyd and your hosts Ally Koehler and Stephen Ennis.

Exercise in space is about more than just looking good – it's essential for astronaut health. In this episode Ally Koehler and Stephen Ennis chat to ESA exercise team lead Nora Peterson and ESA biomedical engineer Beate Fischer about how astronauts like Luca stay fit and healthy in space.

It seems the further we venture out from Earth – first with satellites in orbit and then with explorers to the Moon and Mars – the more space weather has the chance to disrupt, destroy, or even harm us. Find out what would happen if a huge solar storm struck Earth today with author and astronomy journalist Stuart Clark. And, what is ESA doing to protect us? Jussi Luntama, Head of ESA's Space Weath...

Experts dissect fact versus fiction in ESA’s new short film, "The Burn." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhM-bqXTKoU ‘The Burn’ is a dramatisation set in the near future at ESA’s ESOC mission control centre in Germany, and tells the story of a mission control team that is about to conduct an orbit entry manoeuvre. All is apparently going well… until it doesn’t. >> SELECTED for the Australia Scienc...

In 1859, the largest solar storm on record struck Earth, bringing the aurora down to the equator and technology of the time to a stop. In this episode, we explore the Carrington event and what it was like to experience, and hear about past understandings of the dancing lights in the skies, as well as learn about more modern understandings of what's going on.

ESA’s Cluster mission has recorded the magnetic waves generated in the magnetic foreshock above Earth – the first region of our planet’s magnetic environment that solar wind particles encounter – during calm space weather conditions. This audio file contains a 'sonification' of the data, where sounds were obtained by transforming the frequencies of these magnetic waves into audible signals. Read t...

ESA’s Cluster mission has recorded the magnetic waves generated in the magnetic foreshock above Earth – the first region of our planet’s magnetic environment that solar wind particles encounter – during a solar storm. This audio file contains a 'sonification' of the data, where sounds were obtained by transforming the frequencies of these magnetic waves into audible signals. The sounds are higher...

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano is preparing for a series of spacewalks to service the dark-matter-hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02. In this bonus episode he speaks about his upcoming spacewalk, its tasks and its challenges directly from the International Space Station.

October 2019 is a busy month for spacewalking, and November will be no different. In this episode Ally and Stephen look at what it takes to prepare for and perform a spacewalk or EVA with head of ESA's EVA and Parabolic Flight Training Unit Hervé Stevenin with special content from ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano.

Hosts Ally Koehler and Stephen Ennis listen to and discuss some of the sounds that characterise life on the International Space Station with astronaut instructor and ESA BME/Eurocom Serena Bertone.

This is the track ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano listened to in the countdown to launch inside the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft that took him alongside crewmates NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov to the International Space Station on 20 July 2019.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano will support over 50 European experiments in microgravity during his Beyond mission to the International Space Station. Hosts Ally and Stephen talk to two of the experts who help facilitate this unique space research – Chloe Audas of ESA's ISS research planning team and Marco Carrano, an astronaut trainer at ESA's astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany.

In this episode of ESA Explores podcast Beyond series, hosts Ally Koehler and Stephen Ennis chat with ESA head of crew support Romain Charles, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, about events taking place in Baikonur, Kazakhstan before liftoff on 20 July.

Go behind the scenes of space exploration with this official podcast from the European Space Agency. This series focuses on ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano’s Beyond mission to the International Space Station. During his final days of training at ESA’s astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano talks to host Stephen Ennis about his upcoming second mission to the International S...