European Space Agency
Every Cosmic Herald story on European Space Agency — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Missions
Smile Is Cleared for Science, but Its X-Ray Camera Still Has a Stray-Light Problem
The joint ESA-CAS Smile mission was approved for science operations on Sept. 23; its UV imager already films the full auroral oval for 45 hours at a stretch, while the X-ray camera waits for stray light to fade in mid-October.
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Astronomy
Webb's 'Cosmic House of Mirrors' Catches a Rare Lensing Trick Twice in One Cluster
ESA/Webb's September Picture of the Month shows MACS J0454.1-0300, where cluster gravity warps and multiplies distant galaxies. The rare four-plus-image arrangement appears twice, a first, with clumps magnified more than 300 times.
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Missions
Juice Skims Earth's Atmosphere Region and Bends Its Path Toward Jupiter
ESA's Juice swept 8,640 km above the Indian Ocean on Sept 28, 2026, turning 20 degrees and gaining 3.5 km/s with almost no propellant, and is now better aimed for its July 2031 arrival at Jupiter.
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Missions
Ramses Wakes Up: ESA-JAXA Apophis Spacecraft Powers On in Milan
ESA's Ramses spacecraft, built with JAXA, has had its Core Module computer and subsystems switched on for the first time in Milan, a milestone in a compressed schedule to launch by spring 2028 for Apophis' April 13, 2029 flyby.
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NASA & Agencies
Roman Space Telescope's Three Ground Stations Pass Peak-Rate Data Test Ahead of 2027 Science Start
NASA confirms all three ground stations tracking the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope can receive its data at the full 500 Mbps rate, clearing a key hurdle before science operations begin in early 2027.
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NASA & Agencies
ESA and ISRO Extend Their Partnership to 2032 — and Widen It to Space Weather and Human Exploration
In Paris, ESA and ISRO quietly stretched a 24-year-old cooperation pact five more years and folded in space weather, human and robotic exploration, and orbital sustainability.
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NASA & Agencies
Vega-C Carries a Plant-Fluorescence Hunter and an Ocean Watcher to Orbit — Together, For the First Time
Europe's Vega-C flew two Earth Explorers at once for the first time on September 15, deploying ESA's fluorescence-mapping FLEX satellite and the Sentinel-3C ocean-and-atmosphere monitor from French Guiana.
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Science & Discovery
NASA Recruits the Public to Teach AI What a Telescope Glitch Looks Like
NASA's new Artifact InSPECtor project asks citizen scientists to flag cosmic-ray hits and detector quirks in Euclid telescope spectra, building the human-labeled dataset needed to train AI filters before the Roman Space Telescope starts science operations in 2027.
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Missions
ESA's Juice Swings Back Past Earth for a Second Gravity Boost Toward Jupiter
Juice, ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, makes its second Earth flyby this month — one more gravity assist in a chain that will finally deliver the spacecraft to Jupiter in 2031, eight years after launch.
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NASA & Agencies
Two Satellites, One Ocean: Sentinel-6 Duo Times a Late-Blooming El Niño for Hurricane Forecasters
NASA says its Sentinel-6 satellite pair, flying 30 seconds apart, is cross-checking ocean-height data during a strong, late-arriving 2026 El Niño just as hurricane season peaks.
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NASA & Agencies
ESA and Vast Agree to Fly Greece's First Astronaut to the ISS
ESA and commercial station firm Vast signed an agreement in Paris to fly Greek flight surgeon Adrianos Golemis to the ISS in 2027, pending medical certification, aboard a mission commanded by Thomas Pesquet.
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Missions
BepiColombo Sheds Its Ferry and Begins the Final Descent to Mercury
After an eight-year, 9.9-billion-kilometer journey and nine planetary flybys, BepiColombo jettisoned its transfer module on Sept. 3, 2026, starting the final approach to a Nov. 21 Mercury orbit insertion.
