ESA Science & Technology - Science & Technology

Proposals are solicited in response to the second Announcement of Opportunity (AO-2) for observing time in the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme. This AO covers the period 26 March 2021 to 25 March 2022. The deadline for proposals is 1 December 2020, 13:00 CET/12:00 GMT.

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's Science Programme Committee has confirmed the continued operations of five missions led by ESA's Science Programme: Cluster, Gaia, INTEGRAL, Mars Express, and XMM-Newton, from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2022. The SPC also confirmed the Science Programme's contributions to the extended operations of Hinode, Hubble Space Telescope,...

Save the date: the Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) will be published on 3 December 2020 at 12:00 CET. The full Gaia Data Release 3 is expected in the first half of 2022. For all details about the Gaia EDR3 see the dedicated overview page linked from here.

After consulting with the JWST Users Committee, STScI, NASA, ESA, and CSA have finalized the review schedule for Cycle 1 proposals. The JWST Cycle 1 General Observer (GO) proposal deadline will be 08:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on Tuesday November 24, 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.

Watch a replay of the press briefing from 16 July with Solar Orbiter mission experts, who presented the unique first images from ESA's new Sun-observing spacecraft.

These are the winning entries in the photo competition for amateur astronomers who captured the unique event of the European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft's flyby of Earth.

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.

Despite certain operational difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the assembly and integration of the flight model for ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft has continued with few delays during the first six months of the year.

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.