ESA

A pair of CubeSats have been selected to explore the dark side of the moon, helping scientists understand what resides on that portion of the lunar surface. The selections were recently announced by the European Space Agency (ESA), which put a call out to European teams in 2017. The two chosen CubeSats are named the Lunar Meteoroid Impact Orbiter (Lumio) and the Lunar Volatile and Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter (VMMO).

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Some of you may consider 2016 to be largely disappointing, but for the video game industry, it was an excellent year. A new report from the Entertainment Software Association and the NPD Group shows that revenue on computer and video games was up in 2016 over the year prior. The increase was small, but still worth celebrating in an industry that's growing as large as video games.

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The 22 member states that participate in the European Space Agency (ESA) met for two days recently in Switzerland and came to the decision to continue ESA participation in the International Space Station (ISS). The ESA member states voted to extend participation in the ISS through 2024. The decision makes the ESA the final ISS partner that has agreed to extend participation.

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The ESA Mars orbiter called ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) is on station in orbit around the Red Planet and has sent back the first images of Mars taken with its on-board instruments. The TGO is orbiting Mars in an elliptical orbit right now that brings the orbiter between 230 and 310 km above the surface of Mars to a farthest distance of around 98,000 km every 4.2 days. During its last two orbits it has been testing out its instruments and making calibrations as needed.

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On 19th October, the European Space Agency rejoiced as its first ExoMars mission successfully completed one of two initial goals. The Trace Gas Orbiter was finally in orbit around its red planet target. However, rejoicing gave way to scratched heads and furrowed brows as the second part of that phase remained in question. The Schiaparelli lander had mysteriously vanished after it detached from the orbiter to land on the surface. Its remains were found three days later and now the ESA has released its initial findings on what may have caused its premature demise.

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It would appear that the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission is - at least in part - successful. The Agency announced today that its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has entered orbit around the red planet, after the 139-minute long burn needed to be captured by Mars' gravity. That means one important part of the mission has been finished and passed with flying colors, but the other part of the mission remains.

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It has been more than two years since Rosetta set off to investigate a comet, and now the mission has reached its end. The European Space Agency reports that Rosetta made a planned impact onto the comet, with that last maneuver having taken place at 22:50 CEST. The spacecraft made its collision from an altitude of almost 12 miles. Though researchers on Earth can no longer communicate with Rosetta, the spacecraft did transmit some final data about the comet before impact, and the researchers are waiting to find out what it contains.

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More than a little drama has happened with the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta is the orbiter that circled the comet taking images and recording data while the Philae was a lander that was going to head down to the surface of the comet and send back even more data. The problem was that things didn’t go as planned for Philae.

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This upcoming October, the Schiaparelli module launched back in March of this year on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), will land on Mars. The European Space Agency is leading this mission, and will use it to demonstrate its own controlled (and hopefully successful) landing of a vehicle on the Mars’ surface. This mission will help refine future ESA missions to the Red Planet, and will also return a limited but still significant set of scientific data.

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The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, which involves a probe orbiting Comet 67P (also known as Churyumov-Gerasimenko), will finally be coming to an end after 12 years of study. The space agency has scheduled September 30th as the spacecraft's last, where it will make a controlled crash into the surface of its partnering space rock. Think of it like a viking funeral, but only for a space probe.

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Most people would agree there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after a decent amount of time away from home, but for these three astronauts, they're probably just happy to be back on Earth, regardless of where they sleep. Early Saturday morning saw the return of NASA's Commander Tim Kopra, the European Space Agency's Tim Peake, and Yuri Malenchenko of Russia's Roscomos after spending 186 consecutive days in space.

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It turns out that comets have been responsible for spreading some of the key ingredients for life throughout the solar system. The European Space Agency has announced that its Rosetta probe has detected some of these building blocks of life within the dust and gas that surrounds Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Scientists suggest this is the process that could have led to such chemical building blocks being delivered to a newly-formed Earth long ago.

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