Three-quarters of the globe is covered in water and its influence is felt everywhere. It’s not only oceans, rivers and lakes that affect the climate but water in all its forms, such as soil moisture and its evaporation. SMOS, ESA’s water mission, will provide a uniform dataset for understanding better the water cycle, thus helping to forecast climate change and predict extreme weather conditions. Circulating at a low orbit of around 750 km above the Earth, SMOS will be the first satellite to provide us with a global picture of ocean salinity levels. Understanding the salinity and temperature of the seas will help to predict more easily the zones where hurricanes intensify as they pass over the ocean. Salinity in the oceans has a big impact on ocean circulation, which plays a key role in driving the global climate. The SMOS satellite will be launched into space in 2008 atop the Russian launcher ‘Rockot’.

ESApod video programme

Before each manoeuvre, the mission control team at ESA's Space Operations Centre simulates all aspects of the upcoming operation and practices identifying and solving problems that could arise. The multinational team must work as one to react immediately and effectively. Once at its target comet in 2014, Rosetta’s lander, Philae, will touch down and study the comet’s surface composition and drill into the icy nucleus to collect and analyse samples, including complex organic material that may have contributed to the formation of life on Earth.

ESApod video programme

The European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) receives data from deep-space ground stations worldwide. The huge volume of data that comes back to Earth from space has to be calibrated and translated into a format that can be exploited by scientists.

ESApod video programme

Radio telescopes must be very large in size to achieve the same resolution as optical telescopes. The only way to do this is by coupling two or more of them, the further apart the better, and to analyse their combined signals. An interferometer is a system which can avoid increased expenses due to the large size of the receiver. It consists of two or more elements of large antennae. By connecting them in a special fashion, it is possible to artificially create a larger telescope. The European hub for what is called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is situated in Dwingeloo in the Netherlands, at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, JIVE.

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The Santa Maria station (SMA) tracking footprint covers a large portion of the Atlantic ocean. The first launch to be tracked from Santa Maria will take place in early 2008, when Jules Verne, the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to be sent to the International Space Station, lifts off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on board an Ariane 5 launcher.

ESApod video programme