During a press conference on 9 January, the Director General of the ESA, European Space Agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain said that “2012 is the year of all of the challenges”. It should be highlighted that this year will be a busy one for the Agency with numerous missions scheduled, such as that already begun with its astronaut André Kuipers aboard the International Space Station, the maiden flight of the small launch vehicle Vega from the Guiana Space Centre followed by the blasting off to the Station of the third automatic ATV cargo ship, not forgetting notably the MetOp-B and MSG-3 weather satellites, the Swarm satellite trio which will be studying the Earth’s magnetic field and then the sending of two new satellites up into space for the Galileo European navigation system. This non-exhaustive list shows that the ESA, despite the financial difficulties currently existing in Europe, maintains a constant annual budget (a little less than 4 billion euros). Moreover, Jean-Jacques Dordain see this as a sign showing that “for the Member States [of the ESA], space is a priority” and “that investing in space, is a way of providing for the future”. Pragmatic, he underlined that “industrial space activities are strongly anchored in Europe and not delocalised”, an argument which is directly aimed at political leaders anxious to encourage employment in Europe whereas preparations are already underway for the ESA Council Meeting at Ministerial Level to be held at the end of the year. This will unite ministers from the Agency’s Member States in order to define its programmes and its general policy for the years to come. It will therefore be a key event. Jean-Jacques Dordain also underlined his desire to reduce the operating costs of the International Space Station in agreement with the other partner agencies and his intention of making savings of 175 million euros as regards ESA’s internal costs. It is worthy of note that the Agency is also preparing to welcome Poland as its twentieth Member State. With regard to Ariane 5, the Director General referred to the “end of a cycle” and the need to think about the launch vehicle that Europe will need in the next 10 years.
The ESA video below presents the missions scheduled in 2012.
This is the mythical rocket par excellence, the one that launched Sputnik, the first satellite and Gagarin, the first man in space. The CSG, Guiana Space Centre, is now one of its launch bases: a historic achievement.
The first episode of this famous science-fiction series was broadcast in September 1966. NASA has often made references to these programmes, as in the case of the space shuttle Enterprise, which had the same name as the spaceship in the series.
50 years ago on 5 May 1961, a few weeks after Gagarin, American Alan Shepard reached space. Several years later, he was to walk on the Moon, summarising as it were the race in which the Soviet Union and the United States were competing.
