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Moon

As the dust settles – first sandbag tapping at LUNA

Exciting developments are unfolding in Cologne, Germany, where ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are establishing a worldwide unique lunar analogue facility – LUNA. This week, the first lunar sandbag tapping —opening the bags to distribute the sand— marked an important step in preparing the hall for future Moon mission testing.

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Astronaut portrait - Sławosz Uznański. Credits: ESA - A. Conigli
Sławosz Uznański

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with Sławosz Uznański

In Episode 10 of this ESA Explores podcast series, we spoke to Sławosz Uznański, an ESA project astronaut from Poland, about his training and preparations for a future mission to space.

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Spaceship EAC

LEGO bricks from space dust

The team of ESA’s Spaceship EAC initiative revived their LEGO-building skills and 3D-printed the famous bricks from lunar regolith and meteor dust, providing a glimpse into how future construction on the Moon might look.

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Moon

Mixing realities for lunar exploration

Anyone who has tried virtual reality (VR) applications knows about its many possibilities: from immersive video games and 360-degree  movies, to virtual museum tours, meetings, or journeys to space – all from the comfort of your home. ESA’s extended reality (XR) lab at the European Astronaut Centre goes one step further and uses virtual, augmented […]

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International Space Station

Happy birthday to you, Electromagnetic Levitator!

This summer marks the ten-year anniversary of the electromagnetic levitation facility on the International Space Station.  Helping to reveal the core physics at play in materials science, the Electromagnetic Levitator (EML) is a furnace in ESA’s Columbus laboratory that can melt metals by induction heating them up to 2200 °C. Scientists can then observe the samples […]

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Podcasts

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with John McFall

In Episode 9 of the ESA Explores podcast series, John McFall, a member of the European astronaut reserve shares his story and explains all about ESA's "Fly!" feasibility study.

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Podcasts

ESA astronaut class of 2022: Astro Chat with Alexander Gerst

In Episode 8 of this ESA Explores podcast series, we chat with ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst about his role as head of astronaut operations at ESA's European Astronaut Centre, guiding the next generation of space explorers on their adventures.

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ESA Astronaut Class of 2022

Hop hop hooray

It’s time to celebrate ESA’s newly graduated astronauts. This Monday 22 April 2024 marked the official completion of one year of rigorous basic training for Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, and Marco Sieber at ESA's European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. 

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