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ESA Bulletin Is an ESA Communications Production number 157 | February 2014 bulletin → space for europe European Space Agency The European Space Agency was formed out of, and took over the rights and The ESA headquarters are in Paris. obligations of, the two earlier European space organisations – the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) and the European Launcher Development The major establishments of ESA are: Organisation (ELDO). The Member States are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands. Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Canada is a Cooperating State. ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany. In the words of its Convention: the purpose of the Agency shall be to provide for ESRIN, Frascati, Italy. and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view ESAC, Madrid, Spain. to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems: EAC, Cologne, Germany. → by elaborating and implementing a long-term European space policy, by ECSAT, Harwell, United Kingdom. recommending space objectives to the Member States, and by concerting the policies of the Member States with respect to other national and international ESA Redu, Belgium. organisations and institutions; → by elaborating and implementing activities and programmes in the space field; → by coordinating the European space programme and national programmes, and by integrating the latter progressively and as completely as possible into the European Chairman of the Council: space programme, in particular as regards the development of applications Johann-Dietrich Wörner satellites; → by elaborating and implementing the industrial policy appropriate to its programme Vice-Chairs: and by recommending a coherent industrial policy to the Member States. Enrico Saggese and David Parker The Agency is directed by a Council composed of representatives of the Member Director General: States. The Director General is the chief executive of the Agency and its legal Jean-Jacques Dordain representative. ← On cover: ESA’s Gaia star-mapper satellite was launched on 19 December 2013. Here, Gaia is lowered into position on its Soyuz launcher earlier in December (ESA/CNES/ Arianespace/Optique Vidéo du CSG) → contents 06 number 157 | February 2014 02 12 The ESA Bulletin is an ESA Communications production. Published by: ESA Communication Department ESTEC, PO Box 299 2200 AG Noordwijk The Netherlands Tel: +31 71 565 3408 Email: [email protected] Editor 30 38 45 Carl Walker Design WHY 1964? Giada Gasperoni (Taua) An introduction by Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain → 02 Organisation www.esa.int/credits FIFTY YEARS OF COOPERATION A history of Europe in space The ESA Bulletin is published by the Dr John Krige → 06 European Space Agency. Individual articles may be reprinted provided A CHRONOLOGY OF EUROPEAN COOPERATION IN SPACE the credit line reads ‘Reprinted from Part 1: 1959–74 → 12 ESA Bulletin’, plus date of issue. Reprinted signed articles must bear COPERNICUS the authors’ names. Moving from development to operations Josef Aschbacher et al → 30 ESA and the ESA logo are trademarks of the European Space Agency. GETTING ‘SPACE’ EXPERIENCE ON EARTH Images copyright ESA unless stated otherwise. Permission to reproduce Education activities for university students or distribute material identified as Natacha Callens & Piero Galeone → 38 copyright of a third party must be obtained from the copyright owner 2013 IN PICTURES concerned. Some of the most memorable moments and inspirational images taken last year → 45 Copyright © 2014 NEWS IN BRIEF → 56 European Space Agency ISSN 0376-4265 | e-ISSN 1608-4713 PROGRAMMES IN PROGRESS → 68 PUBLICATIONS → 92 why 1964? The notification by ESRO that the French government had ratified the original text of the ESRO Convention (deposited with the French Ministère des Affaires étrangères as an intergovernmental agreement signed in Paris) 2 www.esa.int dg intro → → WHY 1964? An introduction by Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General A new year opens, but 2014 is special: this year the This year, 2014, will be dedicated to addressing the future space community is celebrating the anniversary of in the light of these 50 years of unique achievements the construction of Europe as a space power and in space, which have put ESA among the leading space 50 years of unique achievements in space. agencies of the world. The collaborative European space effort was officially born In the late 1940s and 1950s, European integration in 50 years ago. In 1964, the Conventions of the European advanced scientific and technological developments was Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the then very much in the air – until two leading scientific European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) entered statesmen, Pierre Auger of France and Edoardo Amaldi of into force. A little more than a decade later, ESA was Italy, made the first steps towards establishing a significant established, taking over from these two organisations. European presence in space. European Space Agency | Bulletin 157 | February 2014 3 why 1964? Amaldi’s informal paper on the ‘Introduction to the discussion It was widely accepted that European space science should on space research in Europe’, written in 1959, suggested the be organisationally distinct from launcher development. creation of a ‘European Space Research Organisation’ that Thus were the seeds sown for Europe to enter space would need five years to get itself off the ground. A young with two organisations. One was ESRO that emerged French scientist, Jacques Blamont, also pleaded for the from COPERS. The other was ELDO, whose structure was ‘creation of a European centre for rocket research, which could defined in parallel negotiations between a smaller group of be managed by scientists’, on the model of CERN. governments and which included a non-European country, Australia, among its Member States. The momentum was established, leading to a meeting of those interested with the Committee on Space Research, held COPERS laid its draft convention before an in Nice, France, in January 1960. The UK’s Sir Harrie Massey intergovernmental conference in Paris on 14 June 1962. came armed with a blueprint for a possible programme for It entered into force on 20 March 1964, the official birth a European space organisation. Scientists met again shortly date of ESRO. The 10 founding states were Belgium, afterwards in Paris, in February 1960. A major step forward Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, was taken at this gathering towards formalising the European the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the space programme, based on Massey’s proposal. United Kingdom. Austria and Norway, originally engaged in the deliberations over the formation of ESRO, retained A European Space Research Study Group produced a observer status. draft document that was then submitted to a high-level meeting of scientific and government officials that met in The first ESRO Council meeting took place on the main auditorium at CERN (Meyrin, 28 November 1960). 23 March 1964. Open for signature on 29 March 1962, The delegates sanctioned the formation of a Preparatory the ELDO convention entered into force two years later, Commission to Study the Possibilities for European on 29 February 1964. Its Council met for the first time on Collaboration in the Field of Space (COPERS). 5 May of that year. → Europe’s celebration of 50 years in space was launched on 5 December 2013, at the European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) naming ceremony at Harwell, UK. ECSAT’s new building will be named after ESA’s first Director General, Roy Gibson. Here current ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, Roy Gibson and UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts laid the stones of a sculpture that will be placed in the future building’s courtyard (UKSA/M. Alexander) 4 www.esa.int dg intro → The European space effort was almost overwhelmed This is only possible because we have the launchers, systems by a crisis in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Out of the and technologies capable of placing satellites accurately technological setbacks and political uncertainties that into space. The benefits of space utilisation and exploration marked the period, the template for a viable collaborative have expanded in ways that could not have been envisaged European effort in space science and applications, along 50 years ago. Space applications are now a fact of daily life with launcher development, was defined. This template for all European citizens, and have become one of the most provided the framework for the successful European space efficient vectors of growth. The future is therefore much programme that ensued. more important for space than its past. A single European Space Agency was established in 1975. Now a suite of events and activities are planned during 2014 A Silver Jubilee Celebration took place in 1989, in the to mark the 50 years of European cooperation in space – presence of French President Mitterrand and German anniversary for the whole space sector in Europe, which can Chancellor Kohl, to mark 25 years of successful be proud of its results and achievements. European cooperation. With the motto ‘serving European cooperation and In those years, ESA has become Europe’s gateway
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