Skip to content
  • Blog post
  • 2016 m. spalio 6 d.

European Space Agency - European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESA-ESTEC) Open Day 2016

The Library and Research team attended the ESA-ESTEC annual open day on 2 October. The European Space Agency (ESA) has sites in several European countries, but the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, is the largest. ESTEC is ESA's technical heart, where most projects are born and are guided through the various phases of development.

The theme of this year's open day was "Breath of life". The ExoMars orbiter, currently nearing Mars, will be searching out methane and associated rare gases in the thin alien atmosphere as evidence of subsurface volcanic activity, which would mean the planet remains geologically active. The presence of such gases could also indicate the presence of either surviving Mars microbes.

Another protagonist of the 2016 open day was the Rosetta spacecraft and its robotic lander Philae, which very recently ended their very successful mission to study Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Comets contain complex organic molecules - compounds that are rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These are the elements which make up nucleic acids and amino acids, the essential ingredients for life as we know it. Did life on Earth begin with the help of comet seeding? The results from the Rosetta mission may help us to find the answer to this fundamental question.

20161006_esa_iss

Back on Earth, visitors could also admire the Europe's Sentinel-5P satellite, which, after a series of technical tests performed at ESTEC, is nearly ready for launch. The latest in the Sentinel family of satellites will support Europe's Copernicus global environmental monitoring initiative. The satellite's main Tropomi sensor will survey the changing state of Earth's atmosphere in unprecedented detail.

Visitors very much appreciated the human spaceflight exhibition area too. ESA and its astronaut corps participate in the development of space infrastructure, such as the International Space Station, which makes it possible to perform experiments in a weightless environment, very different from that we have on Earth. This research and technology development will benefit people on Earth and prepare Europe for new human space exploration challenges.

Space research is one of the European Union's priorities, as it represents an important contributory factor to European competitiveness.

The library's Think Tank Review therefore regularly features articles on European research and space issues: