Leaders of European space organisations gathered at ESA’s technical heart – the European Space Technology and Research Centre ESTEC in Noordwijk, the Netherlands – on 15-17 March as part of a trilaterial teambuilding seminar between the three entities.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher (second from right) and Acting ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality Torben Henriksen (first left) hosted Timo Pesonen, Director-General for Defence, Industry and Space at the European Commission (far right) and Rodrigo de Costa, Executive Director of the EU Agency for the Space Programme, EUSPA (second left).

The quartet are seen walking down ESTEC’s 200-m-long main corridor, the backbone of the establishment that links ESA programme and mission teams with technical laboratories and ESTEC’s Test Centre for satellites. This corridor can also be pressed into service as a technology-testing venue in its own right.

Together the three bodies are collaborating closely on numerous European space activities, including Galileo, the world’s most precise satellite navigation system; Copernicus the world’s biggest environmental monitoring system; the new Cassini Matchmaking initiative, connecting space entrepreneurs and start-ups with customers, technical and business support; and Europe’s planned IRISS satellite constellation for secure governmental connectivity.