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The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 19 member states.
Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 (2012).
ESA's space flight program includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station program, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle.
ESA is managing several centres distrbuted in Europe:
- ESTEC: the ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands,
- ESRIN: the Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy,
- ESOC: the ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany,
- EAC: the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany,
- ESAC: and the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) is located in Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain.
