SAN FRANCISCO – Shey Sabripour was first exposed to active phased array antennas while designing satellites at Lockheed Martin in the early 1990s.

At the time, engineers spent three to five years building a geostationary communications satellite that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to perform a specific job.

WASHINGTON — The next leader of the European Space Agency says his top priorities are to improve the agency’s relationship with the European Union and support commercial space activities in Europe.

ESA announced Dec. 17 that the ESA Council selected Josef Aschbacher to be the next director general, effective at the end of June 2021 for a four-year term.

Solar Orbiter is getting ready for the first of many gravity assist flybys of Venus on 27 December, to start bringing it closer to the Sun and tilting its orbit in order to observe our star from different perspectives. 

HELSINKI — India successfully sent the CMS-01 extended C-band communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit Thursday with the country’s second launch of 2020.

As the holiday season swiftly approaches, even our planetary neighbours are getting into the spirit – as shown by this perfect pair of festive silhouettes spotted by ESA’s Mars Express.

Today, the ESA Council appointed Dr Josef Aschbacher as the next Director General of ESA, for a period of four years. He will succeed Prof. Jan Wörner, whose term of office ends on 30 June 2021.

Climate data taken from Earth orbiting satellites, combined with machine learning techniques, are helping to better predict outbreaks of cholera and potentially save lives.