ESA

Science stands still for no one, and with a new year comes a new calendar of exciting events in spaceflight and exploration. New Atlas rounds up some of the most important milestones to look forward to in 2020.

There’s only so much oxygen we can take with us to the Moon, so figuring out how to produce it there is crucial. Now, ESA researchers have created a prototype device that can make oxygen out of the most common thing on the Moon – dirt.

ESA engineers have determined why the space agency's Huygens probe suddenly began spinning the wrong way 15 years ago as it descended to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The reversal could have implications for future space missions.

ESA has successfully launched its Cheops telescope on a mission to make detailed follow-up studies of distant exoplanets discovered by earlier space-faring telescopes, such as Kepler and TESS.

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has captured a rare movie of the Martian moon Phobos. The moon is set to be the target of an international mission to survey the Red Planet’s two natural satellites, and return a surface sample to Earth.

ESA has commissioned the world's first mission to recover a piece of space debris in orbit. At the end of November, the Ministerial Council consortium awarded a service contract to a consortium for the ClearSpace-1 mission to launch in 2025.

ESA is asking amateur astronomers to help it plan the Hera asteroid mission scheduled to launch in less than five years. The space agency is soliciting data that will allow mission planners to identify candidate asteroids as flyby targets.

On November 18, 2019, from aboard the International Space Station (ISS) 250 mi (400 km) above the Earth, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano took control of the prototype Analog-1 rover for a half-hour spin around its obstacle course in the Netherlands.

ESA is delving into how astronaut hibernation would affect space missions. The study suggests that using hibernation on a Mars mission would reduce the mass of the spacecraft by a third and cut the amount of consumables by about the same amount.

ESA scientists are experimenting with growing blood vessels in the weightlessness of space. Based on the Spheroids experiment on the ISS, researchers found that blood vessel cells organize themselves in a way similar to that of cells inside the body.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a creepy cosmic face emerging from the remnants of colliding galaxies. The gleaming eyes represent the central regions of the dueling galaxies, while other features are formed from their tortured disks.

The Vulcain 2.1 liquid-fueled engine, the rocket that will power the first stage of ESA's Ariane 6 launcher, has passed its qualification tests.