This collection of stickers was started by ESA’s former Head of the ESTEC Communication Office, Heidi Graf, a key figure in ESA communications from 1977 to 2006. She began the process of setting aside examples of each sticker produced with an accompanying inventory. The collection subsequently grew from there, with contributions over the years from other colleagues in ESA communications (including Andy Wilson, Juan de Delmau, Carl Walker and Hugo Simoes).
Stickers were often part of the press kits for mission launches, along with brochures, pin brooches and other gadgets. Their design was often similar to, or replicated, the design of the fabric mission patches.
On its ingestion into the ESA Archives this collection was combined with the stickers that had been collected by the European Centre for Space records since its creation in 2002. In total, the combined collection amounts to around 300 stickers in 3 CD-ROMs (digitised in ESTEC to ensure its ongoing preservation and protection from corruption of the CD-ROMs) and 250 analogue (hard copy) stickers.
The collection now available in SHIP includes the digitised stickers that are available in high resolution, that ESA has the rights to use, and for which we have information or descriptions. It covers the period from the 1960s to 2021 and the whole spectrum of ESA activities, from sounding rockets and balloon programmes, through human spaceflight and launchers, to meteorology and science. The Archives team will open more stickers in due course and will periodically add to this collection any new stickers that are donated to the Archives.
To browse the collection of stickers, enter the SHIP database and search for ‘stickers’.
Once you have selected one from the 11 series available, SHIP’s image viewer allows you to select your preferred viewing mode by clicking the 'image viewer' icon on the right of the top header bar.