News

• Read ESA's Strategy 2040

  | Thu, 20 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0100
  

  ESA's Strategy 2040

  Read the Five Goals

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• Plato’s eyes meet brain

  | Mon, 30 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0200
  Video: 00:01:38

  On 11 June, engineers at OHB’s facilities in Germany joined together the two main parts of ESA’s Plato mission. 

  They used a special crane to lift Plato’s payload module, housing its 26 ultra-sensitive cameras, into the air and carefully line it up over the service module. The supporting service module contains everything else that the spacecraft needs to function, including subsystems for power, propulsion and communication with Earth. 

  With millimetre-level precision, the engineers gently lowered the payload module into place. Once perfectly positioned, the team tested the electrical connections. 

  Finally, they securely closed a panel that connects the payload module to the service module both physically and electronically (seen ‘hanging’ horizontally above the service module in this image). This panel, which opens and closes with hinges, also contains the electronics to process data from the cameras. 

  Now in one piece, Plato is one step closer to beginning its hunt for Earth-like planets.  

  In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will undergo tests to ensure its cameras and data processing systems still work perfectly. 

  Then it will be driven from OHB’s cleanrooms to ESA’s technical heart (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. At ESTEC, engineers will complete the spacecraft by fitting it with a combined sunshield and solar panel module. 

  Following a series of essential tests to confirm that Plato is fit for launch and ready to work in space, it will be shipped to Europe’s launch site in French Guiana. 

  The mission is scheduled to launch on an Ariane 6 in December 2026. 

  Access the related broadcast quality video footage. 

  ESA’s Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) will use 26 cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars.  

  Plato's scientific instrumentation, consisting of the cameras and electronic units, is provided through a collaboration between ESA and the Plato Mission Consortium. This Consortium is composed of various European research centres, institutes and industries, led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The spacecraft is being built and assembled by the industrial Plato Core Team led by OHB together with Thales Alenia Space and Beyond Gravity. 

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• Astronomers discover a galaxy frozen in time for billions of years: 'Fossil galaxies are like the dinosaurs of the universe'

  | Mon, 30 Jun 2025 21:00:00 +0000
  

  Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that has been "frozen in time" for billions of years. Like a celestial dinosaur fossil, this galaxy could reveal the secrets of cosmic evolution.
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• Was ancient Mars habitable? NASA's Perseverance rover is grinding into a 'weird, uncooperative' rock to find out

  | Mon, 30 Jun 2025 19:00:00 +0000
  

  NASA's Perseverance rover is digging deeper into Mars' geologic past as it begins grinding into rock surfaces to expose material that could hold clues to the planet's ancient environment and habitability.
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• 'The sun is dying!' Ryan Gosling tries to save a doomed Earth in 1st trailer for 'Project Hail Mary' (video)

  | Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:07:25 +0000
  

  "Project Hail Mary" is the upcoming outer space odyssey, based on Andy Weir's 2021 novel, that offers a stirring story of alien first contact.
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• 'Apollo 13' turns 30: How NASA legend Gerry Griffin helped director Ron Howard 'get it right'

  | Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000
  

  As 'Apollo 13' turns 30, we talk to legendary NASA flight director Gerry Griffin who helped make the film as realistic as possible.
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