European Space Agency (IM1)



The European Space Agency (ESA; Swedish: Europeiska Rymdorganisationen, ERO; French: Agence spatiale européenne, ASE) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, with 22 member states. Established in 1955 and originally headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, ESA has a staff of more than 4,000 with an annual budget of about €6.28 billion / US$7.51 billion (2013).

Today, ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station programme, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Svalbard Space Centre at Nybyen, Svalbard, and designing launch vehicles. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle.

ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany, and the European Space Astronomy Centre is located in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain.