Portal. Science & Technology: Home page. European Space Agency. The European Space Agency (ESA) (French: Agence spatiale européenne - ASE) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, with 20 member states.
Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €4.28 billion / US$5.51 billion (2013).[1] ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station programme, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle.
Johannes Kepler. Welcome to the ATV blog!
This blog is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an unofficial and in-depth source of information for the general public, media and anyone interested in the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV)-series of missions to the ISS. It is updated by editors from the ESA Web team with input from mission controllers, ATV project experts, engineers, scientists and senior managers at ESA and our partners working at the ATV Control Centre, Toulouse; ESA headquarters, Paris; ESA's Spaceport, Kourou; and other ESA establishments.
The team here will certainly do their best to get you the latest information on the current ATV mission as soon as possible! Nonetheless, the ATV blog is provided strictly on an unofficial, best-effort basis and ESA makes no warranty that the information, news, comments or opinions published in this blog are confirmed, accurate, official or in any way reflect the formal policies of the European Space Agency or our partners.