Throughout 2025 we celebrated the first 50 years of ESA, digging deep into its creation in the 1970s. This year the focus will be redirected towards beginnings – at programmatic, organisational or individual level, taking in the formative years of European space, and looking at the origins of activities across the whole spectrum of scientific and technical research and operations.
Scientific work in the widest sense is the foundation on which ESA was built, much of which was inherited from its predecessor ESRO, who established programmes that still exist today, back in the 1960s.
An idea of its importance was reflected in the designation of the ESRO Science Programme as mandatory from the very start, meaning that all Member States were required to contribute. Its origins can be traced back to the ‘Blue Book’ drawn up in 1961 by the Scientific and Technical Working Group of the COPERS preparatory commission, which laid out the first 8-year programme for ESRO, and it was a key element in subsequent milestones like the 1967 Causse Report (for a long-term European space programme) and the ‘package deals’ of programmes of the early 1970s. The Convention establishing ESA in 1975 went on to enshrine it as a mandatory programme in the section dealing with activities (Article V).
Since then, the ESA Science programme has achieved an array of European scientific firsts, and added to our understanding of the Universe, with high-profile missions like Giotto, which captured the world’s imagination (and which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the encounter with Comet Halley this year). But more about them later!
Of course, scientific work has also taken place outside the formal Science programme, on topics as varied as sounding rockets, climate change or space debris, in locations across ESA, including those dedicated to technology or space operations, and in collaboration with a wide range of international, national or institutional partners.
Not forgetting that ESA was also the brainchild or workplace of groundbreaking European scientific personalities, we will also be turning a spotlight on a number of them. And naturally, there are regular openings planned for historical publications and documentation dealing with scientific topics and showcasing aspects or outcomes of work carried out across Europe.
Confident that there will be something in there for everyone, no matter what your specialism, we are excited to embark on this year of exploration of ESA’s scientific legacy!