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International Space Station

Controlling a robot team from space

NASA astronauts Tracy Dyson and Jeanette Epps operated from space a team of robots on Earth in the third session of the Surface Avatar experiment, a collaboration between ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The robot team, consisting of ESA’s Interact rover, and DLR’s Rollin’ Justin and robot dog Bert, worked in a simulated […]

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

Sławosz Uznański training at the European Astronaut Centre

Project astronaut Sławosz Uznański began his training at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne on 1 September 2023. Over the past months, he has been diligently preparing for his future space mission. Here’s a sneak peek into what these preparations looked like.  Back to the classroom Astronaut training includes many hours of theoretical classes […]

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International Space Station

Fly! Expanding space opportunities

Space missions come with a unique set of challenges – while these are hurdles that every astronaut must overcome, space agencies had not, up to this day, interrogated their impact on an astronaut with a physical disability. 

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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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