ESA has officially signed a launch service contract with Avio for the upcoming FORUM mission. Scheduled for launch in late 2027, FORUM—short for Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring—will lift off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Watch the replay of the media information session in which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun (CH) update journalists on the key decisions taken at the ESA Council meeting, held at ESA Headquarters in Paris on 17 and 18 December 2024.

Four pioneering ESA Technology CubeSats reentered Earth’s atmosphere over the last few months. Each was only about the size of a shoebox or smaller, but despite their diminutive dimensions the missions left an outsize legacy in terms of demonstrating innovative space technology, industrial capacity building and scientific data return. 

Step into the holidays with this picturesque ‘winter wonderland’ scene at the south pole of Mars, captured by ESA’s Mars Express.