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Come and visit the European Space Agency’s new Paris Headquarters on 21 March

• ESA Director of European, Legal and International Matters and ESA Headquarters Head of Establishment, Eric Morel de Westgaver
• Claire de Clermont Tonnerre, Paris City Councillor and Deputy Mayor of the 15th arrondissement of Paris
• ESA Director of Internal Services, Jean-Max Puech
• Session to be chaired by Laurent Jauniaux, Head of the ESA Headquarters Project, with presentations by the architects Atelier Du Pont (project architect) and Majorelle (interior architect), real estate developer Sogelym Dixence, Bouygues construction, and Digitalis, responsible for the technical fit-out of the Council chambers.
• Initial press reactions (Press Coordination: Bernhard von Weyhe, Head of Media Relations, ESA HQ)
• European Space Agency, ESA
• Science Wire
• News from the Lab - news . myScience

Jobmail & Alerts

ESA Takes to a Lunar Architecture in the Heart of Paris

The European Space Agency renews its historic headquarters, entrusting its technological restyling to Atelier du Pont

"Ultramodern, flexible and open to the city.” With this, the designers explain that the intervention was necessary for two main reasons: the new requirements of the 22 member states, with the possibility to accommodate up to 30 delegations, and, more importantly, the removal of asbestos from the existing building, constructed on a former industrial site . The site housing the European institution was in fact originally occupied by a Thomson factory, which then passed the baton to the agency in 1976. Today, together with developer Sogelym Dixence, the project for ESA is presented as "a place dedicated to space adventure , blending imagination and knowledge." From the exteriors alone, the building claims a certain solemnity with a layout that develops longitudinally and marks its elevation with a construction through horizontal bands, used to mark the different levels while trying to blend in with the nearby historic buildings.

Once inside, guests will find "the mysteries of matter and the landscapes of our galaxy” that inspired the design. "The ESA headquarters," the architects tell us, "are inspired by the fabulous landscapes of space, lunar craters , rocky meteorites and stellar nebulae. Spread over six levels, the project features varying degrees of accessibility, with spaces dedicated to visitors and places designed specifically for researchers and scientists. While two large rooms on the second floor house the Agency's cafeteria, the head of the building features several levels stacked together to house a conference center, consisting of 38 modular rooms designed for meetings, work spaces and a rooftop with a cafe, all reached by a helical staircase connecting the levels with a complex self-supporting steel structure, whose shape is inspired by the ESA logo itself.

www.atelierdupont.fr

Fuorisalone 2024: Zona Sarpi

Marbled Musings in Milan

A Mountain Home Paying Homage to Nature & Family

A Parisian Apartment Made for a Designer

A Former Factory With Arabian Accents

100 m2 Overlooking the Sorrento Peninsula

In Hong Kong, an Impressive Canopy by the Water

A Roman Apartment Perfect for Remote Working

A Timeless Loft in Milan

A Home From the ‘60s in the Belgian Forest

Paradigma Ariadné, Atmospheric Architects

European Studies Association

With all eyes on Paris for the 2024 Olympics, it will be a year like no other! Join ESA for an month! Learn more at our 13 April (10 AM) Zoom Preview !  2024 Group Flights. We have 2 seats left for LAX/Paris and 1 seat left for SFO/Paris. Find out more here .

With ESA, you'll never be bored! We have a wide range of activities that will help you to see the sites, understand the culture and explore on your own.

Museum Visits

"there are only two places in the world where we can live happily: at home and in paris.", – ernest hemingway.

ESA arranges for you to visit a number of museums and monuments as part of its Civilization program. This year's group visits include: the Louvre (or Eiffel Tower), the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée des Arts Forains (Carnival Arts) and more!

Photo by  Diane Picchiottino  on  Unsplash

Civilization Program

ESA offers an introduction to French civilization, through informative talks, walking tours and guest speakers designed to enhance your understanding and enjoyment of the rich cultural heritage of France. 

Photo by  Robin Ooode  on  Unsplash

Cultural Program

You'll have a choice of seeing the Mozart opera, Coi fan Tutti, at the splendid 19th century Palais Garnier or Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake at the Opéra Bastille. It's inluded in your fee! Everyone will also see a sound & light show at the Invalides where Napoleon's tomb and the chapel will be illustrated with color and music.

• AAC Clyde Space
• Alaska Space
• Alba Orbital
• Anders Povlsen
• Astra Space
• Black Arrow
• Blue Origin
• Catriona Francis
• Chris Larmour
• Climate Change
• Copenhagen Suborbitals
• Craig Clark
• Elecnor Deimos
• Electron Rocket
• European Space Agency
• Frank Strang
• Firefly Aerospace
• Gilmour Space Technologies
• Highlands & Islands Enterprise
• Horizontal Launch
• ISAR Aerospace
• Kodiak rocket Launch
• Kristian Von Bengtson
• Laura Edison
• Llandebr Space Centre
• Lockheed Martin
• New Shepard
• Orbex Space
• Peter Guthrie
• Peter Madsen
• Prestwick Spaceport
• Proton Rocket
• Richard Branson
• Rocket Explosion
• Rocket Factory Augsburg
• Rocket Launch
• Satellite Launches
• Scottish Spaceport
• Shetland Space Centre (SaxaVord)
• Skylark Nano
• Small Satellites
• Snowdonia spaceport
• Space Apprenticeship
• Space Careers
• Space Debris
• Space Scholarship
• Space Tech Expo
• Space Tourism
• Spaceport Cornwall
• Sutherland Spaceport
• UK Space Agency
• UK Space Conference
• UK Space Race
• UK Spaceport
• Vertical Launch
• Virgin Galactic
• Virgin Orbit
• Volodymyr Levykin

ESA Opens Astrolabe Exhibition Hall in Paris HQ

The ESA recently renovated its Paris HQ building. New features include a dynamic 125 square meter Visitor Center called the Astrolabe on the ground floor to serve as a central hub to promote and augment public engagement with ESA’s space exploration activities. The aim is to facilitate knowledge exchange between the Agency, its primary stakeholders, and the workforce. As partner Ouno Creative stated, Astrolabe’s main goals with this project are to Inform, Engage, Inspire, and Innovate.

Those visiting ESA’s state-of-the-art Visitor Center can embark on virtual reality voyages to the ISS. Moreover, they can have interactive sessions with a globe depicting Earth from space, view detailed displays of astronaut suits , and observe ESA memorabilia and launchers. Following these activities, visitors also have the opportunity to purchase souvenirs from the ESA space shop, which houses rocket models and space-related accessories among other things.

Astrolabe: ESA’s First-Ever Public Access Space for Exploring the Agency’s Breakthroughs

The “ESA Astrolabe” venue marks ESA’s inaugural space fully accessible to the public. The Astrolabe, whose name is inspired by an ancient Greek astronomical instrument, is designed to facilitate the exploration of ESA’s achievements , expertise, and knowledge. The space is open to individuals of all ages who are interested in the subject of space discovery. 

Besides holding exhibits, the Astrolabe serves as a contemporary and versatile facility for hosting talks and different events, in addition to functioning as a casual meeting space conducive to creative thinking, brainstorming, and idea sharing among co-workers. 

Future initiatives for the project involve broadening visitation opportunities to educational institutions and other groups, with plans to provide interactive workshops delivered by ESERO (European Space Education Resource Office) France. ESERO France is an educational program run in collaboration with the French Space Agency, CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales). ESERO promotes STEM education in primary and secondary educational institutions across Europe. 

Ultimately, through Astrolabe, ESA aims to inspire and incite visitors via science and technology-related activities while also imparting knowledge about the significance of the European space program. 

The venue, located at ESA’s Paris headquarters, remains open between 10:00 and 14:00 every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and from 13:00 to 17:00 every Wednesday

Matthew is a versatile writer with a passion for both literature and the cosmos. After graduating with a degree in English Literature, he embarked on a journey that combined his love for language and discovery, working in numerous international schools throughout Southeast Asia. Matthew has honed their writing prowess for the past five years as a freelance copywriter, crafting engaging content across various niches. Their dedication to precision and creativity has earned them a reputation as a trusted voice in the industry. Beyond the world of words, Matthew possesses an insatiable curiosity for space-related news and discoveries. This cosmic fascination fuels his creativity and adds a unique dimension to his work.

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Saturn's moon Enceladus top target for ESA

A fresh, icy crust hides a deep, enigmatic ocean. Plumes of water burst through cracks in the ice, shooting into space. An intrepid lander collects samples and analyses them for hints of life.

ESA has started to turn this scene into a reality, devising a mission to investigate an ocean world around either Jupiter or Saturn. But which moon should we choose? What should the mission do exactly? A team of expert scientists has delivered their findings .

The mission would follow Juice , LISA and NewAthena as the first ‘large-class’ mission of Voyage 2050, ESA’s long-term plan for space science activities. Its overarching theme – ‘moons of the giant Solar System planets’ – was chosen back in 2021 . To translate this theme into more concrete mission concepts, ESA selected a committee of top planetary scientists to pool their knowledge and expertise.

Their task? To analyse the scientific merits of visiting various moons of Jupiter or Saturn, and help ESA map roads towards innovative technical solutions that would make such a mission possible.

Scientific priorities were set out as part of the Voyage 2050 recommendations : the mission should focus on the habitability of an ocean world by investigating the links between its interior and its surroundings, as well as searching for signs of past or present life, and seeking to identify life-enabling chemistry at the surface.

“The mission concepts that we have recommended would provide tremendous scientific return, driving forward our knowledge, and would be fundamental for the successful detection of biosignatures on icy moons,” says Dr Zita Martins, astrobiologist at Instituto Superior Técnico, who chaired the team of planetary scientists.

“I am very happy to have been part of this process, seeing first-hand the early steps that will potentially lead to the investigation of the moons of the giant planets by ESA. The search for habitable conditions and for signatures of life in the Solar System is challenging from a science and technology point of view, but very exciting!”

Ambitious but achievable. Always.

Of course, big dreams must always be kept within the bounds of what is technically feasible and financially affordable. As Dr Martin’s team focused on the science, teams of engineers within ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility ( CDF ) analysed what kind of mission would be realistic considering the technologies we expect to be developed within the next two decades.

“We commissioned three CDF studies focused on the most promising moons: Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan,” elaborates Dr Frederic Safa, head of ESA’s Future Missions Department. “The team of scientists worked closely with the CDF engineers on the objectives of each study. The outcomes helped pin down what can be done with the resources that we will have in the 2040s.”

The results are in…

Aiming for transformational science, considering the characteristics of each moon and future planned missions to Jupiter and Saturn’s ocean worlds, the scientists identified Saturn’s moon Enceladus as the most compelling target, followed by Saturn’s moon Titan and then Jupiter’s moon Europa.

No space agency has ever landed on little Enceladus . And yet it has enormous potential for new science, particularly in the realm of habitability. It is generally accepted that there are three conditions for a ‘habitable environment’ to potentially support life as we know it: the presence of liquid water, a source of energy, and a specific set of chemical elements.

Enceladus checks all three boxes. The plumes that spew through its icy crust are rich in organic compounds, some of which are key for life. The ocean also seems to hold a powerful source of chemical energy that could fuel living organisms.

The impact of such a mission could be enormous It would offer Europe – once more – a unique front seat in Solar System science. “An investigation into signs of past or present life around Saturn has never been achieved before. It would guarantee ESA leadership in planetary science for decades to come,” says ESA Director of Science, Prof.  Carole Mundell .

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Building upon ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ( Juice ) and the NASA/ESA/ASI  Cassini-Huygens  mission to visit Saturn and land on Titan, this new mission would carry next-generation instrumentation capable of revealing unimaginable secrets of an ocean world such as Enceladus. ESA could launch such a mission in the early 2040s with  Ariane 6 , arriving at its destination around a decade later. In the style of Juice and Cassini-Huygens, the mission – if targeted towards Enceladus or Titan – could perform a fantastic tour in the Saturn system, encompassing flybys of other puzzling moons, before a  grand-finale  close-up investigation of the chosen target.

To significantly advance European ambitions in planetary science, the team judged that the new mission must collect a sample of the ocean world, either using a lander or by flying close to the surface to sweep up material ejected by plumes. A mission to Enceladus would touch down at the moon’s thinly crusted south pole to collect ejected ocean material, whereas a mission to Titan should focus on lake sediments. In either case, an onboard laboratory equipped with miniaturised and highly sensitive instruments would unravel the biochemical secrets of the collected material.

Like Juice and Cassini-Huygens, our mission to the ‘moons of the giant Solar System planets’ will engage Europe’s foremost engineering and industrial capabilities to cope with enormous challenges, including limited solar energy, wildly varying temperatures and communication over huge distances. ESA is already overcoming similar challenges with Juice.

The new mission will boost European competences in many scientific and technological fields, including in-orbit assembly, operating in extreme environments, landing technologies, and novel scientific instrumentation. All these revolutionary technologies will have a wide range of applications, well beyond ESA’s space science programme.

Space science at ESA

ESA has launched about one large-class mission per decade, with current and previous examples being Juice,  Rosetta ,  XMM-Newton  and  Herschel . Each has been an enormously challenging endeavour, requiring the deployment of completely new technologies and engaging the efforts of thousands of leading scientists and engineers. A robust and stable space science programme ensures European excellence in science and technology; the significant societal impact generates the multi-disciplinary growth that ESA is called to provide to its Member States.

This new large-class mission to the ‘moons of the giant planets’ is the first in a series of three envisaged for  ESA’s Voyage 2050 programme , to be complemented by a selection of medium- and fast-class missions. Together, these will provide diversity and agility over the next two decades, satisfying the ambition of European scientific communities. “In carefully planning Voyage 2050, we are ensuring that ESA’s space science programme secures a world-class, forward-looking set of missions for future generations,” concludes Prof. Mundell.

Notes for editors

Read the  full report of the expert committee  for the large-class mission in ESA’s Voyage 2050 plan covering the science theme ‘moons of the giant planets’

For more information, please contact: ESA Media Relations [email protected]

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