Satellite observations reveal that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic is once again hovering near record lows for this time of year – underscoring a troubling and persistent trend. This issue is a key topic at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium in Vienna, where scientists are emphasising the critical role that ESA’s Climate Change Initiative Sea Ice Project and CryoSat mission have had in helping to underpin these findings.

Looking ahead, the ability to monitor polar sea ice is in safe hands, as the development of the new CRISTAL mission is progressing well

The Exploration Company said it achieved “partial success” on a test flight of a reentry capsule but lost the spacecraft before it splashed down.

Japanese company ispace says it believes its second lunar lander mission crashed because of problems with a laser rangefinder used to determine altitude during its descent.

Seven satellites have been launched for the Italian Earth observation mission, IRIDE. The satellites form part of the Hawk for Earth Observation (HEO) constellation, which carries multispectral optical instruments.

A consortium of Ukrainian, Nordic and eastern European companies is hoping to raise more than 100 million euros ($115 million) to build a constellation of 70-plus imagery satellites that would provide intelligence along Russia’s border.

ESA’s week-long Living Planet Symposium kicked off today in Vienna, Austria, bringing together scientists and researchers from around the globe. Throughout the week, we’ll be covering the bigger stories in depth, such as the first images from ESA’s Biomass mission published earlier today – but we’re also sharing some daily snapshots of other significant happenings.

So, today’s few ‘extras’ include Sentinel-2 marking 10 years in orbit, ESA selects Telespazio to run the ground segment for the TRUTHS mission and listen to EarthCARE data transformed into a dragon’s song for peace.

ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, one of the world’s leading Earth observation conferences, opened today in Vienna.

ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, one of the world’s leading Earth observation conferences, opened today in Vienna. The plenary session began at 10:30 CEST and included addresses from ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes Simonetta Cheli, as well as Margit Mischkulnig, from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Innovation.

There were video addresses from President of Austria, Alexander van der Bellen, Federal Minister for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure Republic of Austria Peter Hanke and the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius. Representatives of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, ECMWF,