The Euclid mission team was awarded this year’s Space Achievement Award by the Space Foundation, a non-profit organisation founded in 1983 to foster collaboration across the global space community. ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher (centre), and ESA Director of Science, Carole Mundell (right), collected the prize at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, USA, on 8 April at 18:00 MDT (9 April at 2:00 CEST).

The Space Foundation recognised the partnership between ESA and the Euclid Consortium for their forward-thinking approach to global collaboration and team work to advance humankind’s understanding of the Universe.

Euclid is a scientific endeavour involving more than 300 institutes from 13 European countries and the USA, Canada and Japan. It has been made possible by the the work and dedication of more than 3500 people and thanks to the expertise of 80 companies from 21 countries.

Euclid’s quest is to uncover the nature of two mysterious components of our Universe: dark matter and dark energy. The mission will chart how the Universe has expanded and how large-scale structure is distributed across space and time. To achieve these ambitious goals, the space telescope will create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the Universe ever produced across 10 billion years of cosmic time.

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

Image source: Space Foundation