This collection contains the complete run of historical ESA Scientific and Technical Reviews held by the ESA Archives and now digitised. This publication was the successor to the ESRO/ELDO Scientific and Technical Review, and was issued quarterly by the ESA Scientific and Technical Information Branch, based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, the Netherlands between 1975, when ESA was created, and the end of 1976, when it became the ESA Journal. It was intended as ESA’s principal technical publication (complementing the ESA Bulletin which was directed at a space-interested public).
The ESA Scientific and Technical Review is not to be confused with the series of ESA Scientific and Technical Reports, despite sharing the same acronym (STR) and an almost identical name. The Reports series existed from 1977 and was the publication route for the results of ESA-funded experiments, studies or investigations, specific to a particular topic and for a narrow technical audience, while the Review was a magazine or digest for a wider technical audience from 1975-1976, succeeded by the ESA Journal from 1977.
The first number of Volume 1 begins with a brief introduction from Director General Roy Gibson, outlining its objective “to inform the scientific and technological communities in Europe and elsewhere of the space-oriented research and development activities in European institutions and industry.”
The collection now open in the SHIP database comprises digitised copies of the complete physical collection of ESA STR held by the ESA Archives, which came to the Archives from ESTEC and the ESTEC Library. This amounts to seven references in total, divided between Volumes 1 (1975, numbers 1-3) and Volume 2 (1976, numbers 1-4) of the publication.
These two volumes contain a total of 38 articles, published in either English or French, with the majority in English. Each number of Volume 1 contains 4 articles as the sole content. The number of articles increases for Volume 2, with 8 articles in Number 1, and 6 articles in Numbers 2, 3 and 4. Not all are standalone articles – there are several examples of a group of articles which each tackle a different aspect of a topic of theme, such as launcher vibrations or Earth-resources surveys.
Volume 2 also includes additional content in the form of a list of ESA (and NASA) publications and, in Number 2 only, a list of ESA patents.
The number of pages of each number varies between 59 and 109, with the page numbering organised according to volume, therefore running on between numbers.
To browse the collection, enter the SHIP database and search for ‘ESA STR’.
Once you have selected a copy, 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.