In 2022, the European Centre for Space Records, one of the homes of the ESA Historical Archives, marked its first twenty years. The publication of this website coincides with this milestone, bringing the digital holdings of the ESA Historical Archives together on one unique platform and making the ESA pictures collections freely accessible for the first time.
The European Centre for Space Records (ECSR) was created in the autumn of 2002. It was established by ESA’s then-Director General, Antonio Rodotà, with an initial consignment of documents from ESTEC, ESA’s technical hub in Nordwijk, the Netherlands. But it soon became the main deposit for technical documentation on projects and missions from all ESA establishments, including ESA’s most prominent achievements such as the Ariane programme, and celebrated missions like Envisat. Since then, other kinds of archive material have been added, including the originals of all signed contracts and collections of negatives, photographs and what are now effectively ‘archive’ preservation tools in their own right – microfiches, floppy disks and more. Of course, there are many more treasures contained within these walls, so make sure you come back regularly to see what we’ve picked out as the object of the month!
The appointment of the first ESA Archives Manager also coincided with the creation of the ECSR: “I remember the huge number of pallets coming from ESTEC - 80? 100? Maybe more, all in the Big Hall, and the magnificence of a new Archives centre, entirely empty, with a lot of light. And so much to do. Envisat was the most impressive collection. The satellite was just launched and we had received a huge number of documents, some 80.000 references, the biggest collection we have for the biggest Earth Observation satellite! We started out right at the end of the analogue era. I consider Envisat as the last pure analogue project in ESA. It’s amazing to look back on that now, from today’s standpoint. We were still talking about long term preservation on microforms. What a time!”
But while the material in the archives comes from the past, the tools and methods used to preserve it have been in constant evolution over these last 20 years. The very first steps towards digitisation were taken in late 1990s, with an initiative at ESA HQ to digitise and produce CD-ROMs of the official Council documents and some minutes of other subordinate bodies. But in these very early days, there was nothing like the immediate access to digital assets that we enjoy today. These preservation actions were continued with the creation of the ECSR, which in 2002 consisted of just over 1 linear kilometre of holdings. Work on digitising the ECSR’s wider collections first began in 2018 with a selection of 300 linear metres of material. Today, the ECSR comprises an impressive 7 linear kilometres and it’s clear that the work of digitising is a constant effort to keep up! To date, we have processed approximately 1 linear kilometre of material and right now, the team taking care of this work are busy with collections from the years 1962 to 2019.
One of the ECSR's major holdings is the historical pictures collections of the ESA Archives. You can currently find approximately 5000 of the images from these collections, covering the years 1964 to 1973, right here – check out how to search our collections to start exploring now!
Looking to the future, we also have an eye on a very big future event – the 50th anniversary of ESA in 2025. Stay in touch to follow the events and activities we’ll be planning along the road to 50 years!