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European Space Agency
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European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an inter-governmental organization dedicated to exploration of space and its exploitation. Its headquarters are in Paris, France. The ESA has a staff of about 1,700. Its 1999 budget was 2,650.8 million euros.

ESA's spaceport (its launch site) is the Guiana space center in Kourou, French Guiana, a site chosen because it is close to the equator, thereby allowing easier (less fuel for a given mass) access to commercially important orbits such as GEO. ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany.

Table of contents
1 History
2 Member countries/organizations
3 Launch vehicle fleet
4 ESA projects
5 See also
6 External link

History

The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) was established on March 20, 1964 per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962. The ESRO's successor organisation ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre, based in Noordwijk, the Netherlands) is still a part of ESA, though ESA itself is a much bigger organization today. ESA in its current form was founded in 1974.

Member countries/organizations

ESA consists of fifteen member states — that is, it is the product of a merger of (or comprises of) national space organizations from these countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. France is the main contributor (see also CNES).

Since January 1st 1979, Canada has the special status of cooperating state with the ESA. By virtue of this accord, Canada takes part in ESA's deliberative bodies and decision-making and also in ESA's programmes and activities. Canadian firms can bid for and receive contracts to work on programmes. The accord has a provision ensuring a fair industrial return to Canada .

Luxembourg and Greece will become full ESA members on December 2005.

ESA has entered into a major joint venture with Russia (see below).

Currently, ESA is not formally affiliated with the European Union (EU) — note that its membership contains non-EU countries such as Switzerland and Norway. There are however common goals between ESA and the EU and ESA has a EU liaison office in Brussels.

Launch vehicle fleet

ESA has made great progress towards its goal of having a complete fleet of launch vehicles in service, competing in all sectors of the launch market. ESA's fleet will soon consist of three major rocket designs:

ESA's Ariane 1, 2, 3 and 4 launchers (the latter of which was ESA's long time workhorse) have been retired.

ESA has entered into a 340 million euro joint venture with the Russian Federal Space Agency over the use of the Soyuz launcher [1]. Under the agreement, the Russian agency will manufacture Soyuz rocket parts for ESA, which will then be shipped to French Guiana for assembly. ESA benefits because it gains a medium payloads launcher, complementing its fleet while saving on development costs. In addition, the Soyuz rocket — which has been the Russian's space launch workhorse for some 40 years — is proven technology with a good safety record, which ESA might be happy to use for launching humans into space. Russia also benefits in that it will get access to the Kourou launch site. Launching from Kourou rather than Baikonur will allow the Russians to almost double the Soyuz payload (3.0 tons vs. 1.7 tons), because of Kourou's closer proximity to the equator. Both sides benefit from the long term strategic cooperation (which will also be used to jointly develop future technology). It might be worth pointing out that France (which again is the main contributor to ESA) has historically had good relations with Russia. This may have been instrumental in reaching this agreement. (See this EuroNews report about the joint venture (Real video stream).)

ESA projects

ESA is taking part in the construction and operation of the ISS, having built the Columbus orbital facility for it — a science laboratory module that will be brought into orbit as soon as the Space Shuttle goes back into service.

ESA is building the ATV — an Automated Transfer vehicle, i.e. a space freighter comparable to Progress — for serving the ISS.

Further ESA projects include:

The ESA is also sponsoring the Keo satellite, which will carry messages addressed to future earthlings and will come back to Earth in the year 52006.

The ESA has also collaborated with NASA on several missions:

See also

External link