Recently in ESA Category

credit: ESA

The European Space Agency has released a video with an animation of its planned 2012 reentry technology demonstrator Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV). As well as showing the mission profile the video shows the IXV's design and construction

click through to the extended portion of this blog post to see the IXV test flight animation

credit: ESA

In the video in the extended section of this blog post the European Space Agency's Bernard Foing describes the ongoing work to analyse the agency's Mars Express spacecraft's Martian surface data in relation to landing site selection for future missions

credit: ESA

Here is the first image of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle named Jules Verne reentering the Earth's atmosphere

Its de-orbit timetable can be seen here in an earlier Hyperbola blog post

ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain announced the successful de-orbit of Jules Verne into the Pacific ocean at the end of the International Astronautical Congress' heads of agency plenary session today in Glasgow, Scotland

credit: ESA / caption: the last image of ATV as it departed ISS on 5 September

The European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle named Jules Verne is to re-enter the upper atmosphere at an altitude of 120km (64.8miles) at 1330 GMT today

click through to the extended portion for further details and to see a ATV mission animation

This European Space Agency video shows a concept lunar space station in low orbit that docks with a visiting spacecraft

What is going on at the European Space Agency? An agency always with high hopes but never high enough budgets it is planning a number of studies related to reusable launch vehicles (RLV) and runway landings


credit: DLR / caption: DLR's Phoenix demonstrator is dropped over Sweden's NEAT test range

While RLVs have featured as a part of ESA's Future Launcher Preparatory Programme I have personally never believed that a mini-Space Shuttle would be the outcome. Even the Russians with all their experience have never even put the flyback booster Baikal into operation - and that is just for a partially reusable system

Yet studies planned by ESA indicate a readiness to spend hundreds of thousands of euros on technologies that can only be for horizontal landing RLVs

credit: ESA

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter's Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), originally designed to provide images of the ill-fated Beagle lander's separation, is now back in action as the 'Mars Webcam'. Not a scientific instrument it is providing "fantastic views of Mars," according to ESA including crescent views of the planet not obtainable from Earth

Go here for more of the webcam's images

Click on all the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window

credit: NASA / caption: NASA selected 23 proposals for a SBSP study in 1999

The European Space Agency's general studies programme is to assess a laser-based SBPS concept for Earth and for the lunar surface. Small scale science missions' laser power transmissions will also be considered

ESA's head of the future transport and infrastructure division, Marco Caporicci, has provided Hyperbola with further information about the agency's plans for its Automated Transfer Vehicle Advanced Return Vehicle (ARV) that could become the basis for a manned capsule

If approved when could you start the new ARV work?

The ARV activities, if approved at the Ministerial Council will start in the March 2009 time frame. Preliminary work is already being performed in preparation of the ESA proposal to the Ministerial Council


credit: ESA / click on image to view larger version in same browser window

Would this help you resolve the issue that you ordered nine EADS Astrium Ariane 5 ECAs from Arianespace originally for ATV?

It could, but the situation is more complex and linked to the final decisions on the life duration of the ISS. More ATV's could be considered in that frame, even before discussing the ARV