Our latest opening for 2025 consists of a second tranche of material from the collection of ESRO (The European Space Research Organisation) and ESA Special Publications. These digitised highlights focus on reference material such as guides, handbooks, manuals and bibliographies.
The SP series was devised for an audience of scientists, industry or the space-interested public and was intended for the publication of scientific or technical information pertaining to ESRO or ESA programmes, such as sponsored conference proceedings, data compilations, handbooks, manuals, or special bibliographies.
The physical collection in the ECSR Archives covers the period 1966 to 2019 in over 1300 publications, mapping European space research activities from the very beginning. The majority are in English, along with just over a dozen in French.
This recently digitised collection consists of 14 references, with some containing multiple volumes resulting in 18 documents in total. The selection reflects this linguistic balance with 17 documents in English and one volume in French. The publications span five decades from 1966 to 2004 covering both technical work and management of information, from ESRO’s sounding rocket experiments to ESA’s Earth observation and astronomical satellites, and from space documentation systems and metalanguages to ESRO basic texts, rules, regulations and agreements, offering an insight into over five decades of European research and activity in space, for ESA’s fiftieth year.
It builds upon and complements the first tranche of ESRO and ESA SPs which were opened in February 2025, consisting of 16 references related to conferences and commemorative events.
The collection is a valuable resource for understanding how things were done in the past, and a tool for comparison with today’s systems, which in some cases maybe be surprisingly similar or look very different. An example of the former is ESRO SP-32 from 1968 – A Guide for ESRO Authors, with timeless advice on the basics of scientific communication and the virtues of virtues of completeness, accuracy, clarity and precision and peppered with quotes from illustrious thinkings including Cervantes, Saint Augustine and Confucius. It also contains a helpful breakdown of the various ESRO publications and their function, along with the approval processes in place at the time, a forerunner of the style guides still produced within ESA today. (Minus the appendix covering the symbols available on the IBM Typewriters!)
Other references include manuals related to satellite missions and their experiments and data, including the remote-sensing satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2/GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment), the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), IUE/INES (International Ultraviolet Explorer/IUE Newly Extracted Spectra) and Meteosat.
And the collection also includes a survey of the collaborative landscape of the mid-1970s, just prior to the ‘birth’ of ESA and in the context of the first formal space organisations, in ESRO SP-98, European Organisations and Institutes willing to co-operate in space technology.
Mindful of the advice to writers from Cervantes in ESRO SP-32 to express themselves plainly and intelligibly , we hope that this brief summary acquits itself and will encourage readers to explore the collection for themselves!
“Study to explain your thoughts, and set them in the truest light, labouring as much as possible not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible.”
Cervantes, Preface to Don Quixote
More information:
To browse the digital collection, enter the SHIP database and search for ‘ESA SP’.
Read more about the collection of ESRO/ESA SP (Special Publications).
