Latest posts tagged with #50YearsofESA on Bluesky
Flag of Ireland on blue sky
#OTD 50 years ago, 31 December 1975, #Ireland 🇮🇪 signed the ESA Convention, becoming ESA's 11th Member State (the 10 original ESRO and ELDO members had signed the Convention a few months earlier on 30 May 1975).
#50YearsOfESA
www.esa.int/About_Us/Cor... @entirl.bsky.social @ucddublin.bsky.social
50 years of European Space Agency (@esa): What Europe’s space agency means for startups today. By @tech_eu
tech.eu/2025/12/30/esa-at-50-wha... #NordicMade #50YearsOfESA #spacetech #nordicspacetech
👏 That's it! Hope you enjoyed this year of 50 (51😉) #50YearsOfESA images. If you missed some, you can search on the hashtag to catch up!
🎄 Thanks for following! Best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year. We'll be back soon with more #SpaceHistory!
The Sun’s inner corona appears greenish in this image taken on 23 May 2025 by the ASPIICS coronagraph aboard Proba-3, ESA’s formation-flying mission capable of creating artificial total solar eclipses in orbit. This image, captured in the visible light spectrum, shows the solar corona similarly to how a human eye would see it during an eclipse through a green filter.
#50YearsOfESA
#2025
OK, 51 years 😉 but we couldn't resist this. This March, @esa.int's Proba-3 achieved what no other mission has before – its two spacecraft flew 150 m apart in perfect formation without control from the ground, and created their first ‘artificial total solar eclipse’ in orbit.
Ariane 6, Europe’s newest heavy-lift rocket, lifts off on 9 July 2024.
#50YearsOfESA
#2024
The first Ariane 6 was launched on 9 July 2024, restoring Europe’s independent access to space. This inaugural flight #VA262 was greatly celebrated in Europe, paving the way for the next Ariane 6 flights.
www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup... @transport.esa.int @cnes.fr
ESA's Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter.
#50YearsOfESA
#2023
@esa.int's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ('Juice') is an interplanetary spacecraft now on its way to Jupiter to study three of its icy moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Juice was launched on #Ariane5 VA260 on 14 April 2023 🧪🔭
#SpaceHistory @transport.esa.int @science.esa.int
Scopri le sfide e i trionfi che hanno plasmato i sistemi di navigazione su cui facciamo affidamento oggi 👇
www.esa.int/About_Us/50_...
#50YearsOfESA
3️⃣0️⃣! Nel 2025 abbiamo celebrato il trentesimo anniversario della navigazione satellitare europea, una pietra miliare costruita su decenni di innovazione, collaborazione ed eccellenza.
@esa.int #50YearsOfESA
Distance marker, Kourou, French Guiana, 1981 © ESA ECSR
Kourou, 1981, © ESA ECSR
Staff and families celebrating at the L01 launch party, for the first Ariane rocket in December 1979 (according to the main article, this is the Swiss delegation 😉 ) © SYGMA/Alain Nogues
🎅 🔔 @esa.int and partners in European industry have built up a history of festive launches, from the first flight of Ariane 1 on 24 December 1979. Closing the commemorations of #50YearsOfESA, #ESAarchives take a look back at #Christmas past in Kourou!
@cnes.fr @transport.esa.int @fr.esa.int
This image shows men working with a vintage computer system and a connected teletype machine in a 1970s or early 1980s setting.
😎 Coming soon! The finale to #50YearsOfESA celebrations, #ESAarchives are unveiling a new project to make public the plan of the collections at the European Centre for Space Records at ESRIN – more here👇 and tell us what you would like to see included!
historicalarchives.esa.int/coming-soon-...
It was a challenge to find one image bringing all of this together! However, #ESAarchives chose the person with whom it all began, at an event celebrating 25 years of European space in the 1980s, representing all the people who contributed to this 60-year adventure!
#50YearsOfESA #ObjectOfTheMonth
The photo shows French physicist Pierre Auger in April 1989, arriving at the main event for the Silver Jubilee of European space. A caption in the ESA Bulletin 58, where this picture was first published, explains who the figures surrounding him are: “K.-E. Reuter (ESA) escorting Prof. P. Auger and Mrs F. Perrin”.
The close of 2025 brings to an end two concurrent years of celebration for the #ESAarchives – the 60th anniversary of the creation of ESA’s predecessors ELDO and ESRO in 2024, and our journey along the ‘road to 1975’ this year for the first 50 years of ESA.
#50YearsOfESA #ObjectOfTheMonth
Cover of the ESA Journal, No.1, 1977
Black and white image from STR Vol.2, No.1 tungsten whisker growth
The STR became the 'ESA Journal' after just two years. This new collection consolidates the existing ESA Journal series, giving access to an unbroken line of ESA's S&T publishing from 1975 up to the final volume of the ESA Journal in 1994! #50YearsOfESA
🔗 historicalarchives.esa.int/esa-str-fore...
A photo taken from one of the Orion spacecraft's cameras mounted on a solar panel wing showing its view of Earth and the Moon from lunar orbit during the Artemis I mission (pic: NASA)
#50YearsofESA
#2022
Launched in November 2022, Artemis I was the uncrewed first mission of NASA's Artemis programme that tested the Orion spacecraft (powered by ESA's European Service Module) and the Space Launch System rocket on a flight around the Moon and back to Earth.
Webb's separation from the Ariane 5 launcher upper stage is seen here by a camera manufactured by Irish company Réaltra Space Systems Engineering. Black sky and Earth fill the background.
#50YearsOfESA
#2021
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Ariane 5 VA256 by Arianespace on behalf of ESA from Europe’s Spaceport on 25 December 2021. #SpaceHistory #Space #History #ScienceHistory
@transport.esa.int @cnes.fr @science.esa.int @stsci.edu
The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft was launched on 10 February 2020, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop an Atlas V 411 rocket.
#50YearsOfESA
#2020
Solar Orbiter was launched on 10 February 2020. An ESA mission with NASA participation, Solar Orbiter is the most complex scientific mission ever sent to our Sun, taking the closest images than any spacecraft before and the first to study our star's polar regions up close 🧪🔭
The launch of ESA's Cheops on a Soyuz rocket operated by Arianespace from Europe's spaceport in Kourou on 18 December 2019 (pic: ESA/CNES/Arianespace)
#50YearsOfESA
#2019
Cheops was launched on 18 December 2019. ESA's 'CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite' is the first space mission dedicated to determining the sizes of known extrasolar planets, to allow estimation of their mass, density and composition.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHEOPS
@cnes.fr
Find out more about Bremen’s space heritage 🧪🔭
historicalarchives.esa.int#oom
#50YearsOfESA #CM25 @exploration.esa.int @dlr-spaceagency.bsky.social @dlr-de.bsky.social @de.esa.int @unibremen.bsky.social
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury lifts off into a black night sky from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou (pic: ESA/CNES/Arianespace)
#50YearsOfESA
#2018
BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018, on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. It's a joint ESA/JAXA mission to study Mercury, now on an eight-year journey with arrival in orbit expected in late 2026.
www.esa.int/Science_Expl... @science.esa.int
Sentinel-5 Precursor – also known as Sentinel-5P – is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere. The satellite carries the state-of-the-art Tropomi instrument to map a multitude of trace gases, which affect the air we breathe and therefore our health and our climate.
#50YearsOfESA
#2017
#Copernicus Sentinel-5P ('Precursor') was launched on 13 October 2017, the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere, carrying the state-of-the-art TROPOMI instrument to map a range of trace gases & aerosols.
www.esa.int/Applications... @euspa.bsky.social
Red, white and green flag of Hungary
#OTD 🔟F years ago: 4 November 2015, #Hungary became ESA’s 22nd Member State when it deposited its instrument of ratification of the ESA Convention in Paris. #50YearsOfESA
www.esa.int/About_Us/Cor...
Artist’s impression of the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars.
#50YearsOfESA
#2016
The first ESA ExoMars mission was launched in March 2016, with a spacecraft consisting of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli lander. TGO arrived at Mars that October. Schiaparelli separated from TGO but its landing was unsuccessful.
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
Recovery of ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle in the Pacific Ocean just west of the Galapagos islands.
#50YearsOfESA
#2015
ESA's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) was a lifting-body spacecraft that completed a suborbital test flight on 11 February 2015. Launched on Vega flight VV04, IXV's mission was to test critical technologies for future European spacecraft.
www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...
Minutes from the first meeting of ESA Communication Satellites Programme Board (PB-Tel)
1976 artist’s impression of meeting room for the new ESA HQ building, rue Mario Nikis, Paris
October’s #ObjectOfTheMonth from #ESAarchives digs into the handover from ESRO to ESA in 1975, seen through the lens of its 'Communication Satellites Programme Board'. More on this 'new' ESA committee👇
historicalarchives.esa.int#oom #50YearsOfESA @eui-euarchives.bsky.social @esaconnectivity.esa.int
👨🚀✋ Auf dem Koningin Wilhelmina Boulevard gibt's jetzt 20 Handabdruckplatten von AstronautInnen. Die beiden neuesten Platten sind von den deutschen Astronauten Thomas Reiter und Ulf Merbold. #50YearsOfESA
WHAT A DAY! Thank you to all of you who joined us for a fantastic #ESAOpenDay and to the extraordinary @nl.esa.int scientists and crew for lifting the curtain and getting us a step closer to space!
Space truly ROCKS! 🤘🖖 Let’s do it again next year?
#ESAOpenDay #50YearsOfESA #NLSW25 #SpaceRocks
Bekijk vandaag het hele programma! 🚀
✨ Quizzen in de NL Space Tent om 13:00, 14:00 & 15:00 uur + bezoek van André Kuipers 👨🚀
🎤 Mis ook de show van Mark the Science Guy niet bij het Space Expo Stage!
👉 Alles via: www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA...
#ESAOpenDay #50YearsOfESA
Thomas Reiter
Ulf Merbold.
Vrijdag 10 oktober zijn er 2 nieuwe tegels toegevoegd aan de Walk of Space! 🤩
👨🚀✋ Op de Koningin Wilhelmina Boulevard liggen inmiddels 20 tegels met handafdrukken van astronauten. De 2 nieuwste tegels zijn van de Duitse ruimtevaarders Thomas Reiter en Ulf Merbold. #50YearsOfESA
📸: Barteld de Jong
It’s a busy day at ESTEC as we get ready for the ESA Open Day this weekend.
@nl.esa.int #buildingbetterworlds #weylanyutani #ESAOpenDay #50YearsOfESA #NLSW25 #NLSpace #NetherlandsSpace #spacefortalent #SpaceRocks #NSO
Using the CIVA camera on Rosetta’s Philae lander, the spacecraft have snapped a ‘selfie’ at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The image was taken on 7 September from a distance of about 50 km from the comet, and captures the side of the Rosetta spacecraft and one of Rosetta’s 14 m-long solar wings, with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in the background. Two images with different exposure times were combined to bring out the faint details in this very high contrast situation.
#50YearsOfESA
#2014
In 2014, ESA's #Rosetta mission achieved two historic milestones: in August, it became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet (Comet 67P) and in November, its Philae lander became the first probe to make a controlled landing on a comet's surface🧪🔭
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
