Copernical Team
ESA Impact 2025 - October-December
ESA Impact 2025 - October-December
Welcome to ESA Impact, your interactive gateway to the most captivating stories and stunning visuals from the European Space Agency, now in a mobile-friendly format.
Post-CM25 industry event online set for 14 January
On 14 January 2026, the European Space Agency (ESA) will hold an online post-CM25 industry event for all ESA industrial partners.
Galileo: the journey of satellites 33 and 34
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On 17 December 2025, two new Galileo satellites lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. This was the 14th launch for Europe’s satellite navigation operational satellite programme, reinforcing Europe’s resilience and autonomy. The flight, VA266, was the first launch of Galileo satellites on Europe’s newest heavy-lift launcher Ariane 6.
The satellites, designated SAT 33 and SAT 34, separated from the launcher after a flight of just under four hours. The launch was declared successful after acquisition of signal and the confirmation that both satellites are healthy with their solar arrays deployed.
“With these new satellites, we strengthen Europe’s global navigation
XRISM sees comet 3I/ATLAS in X-ray light
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XRISM sees comet 3I/ATLAS in X-ray light Introducing ARIEL, a new 250 N thruster
LizzieSat 3 completes bus commissioning for multi mission AI operations
Sidus Space has completed bus-level commissioning of its LizzieSat-3 spacecraft, confirming that the satellite's core systems are operational in orbit and ready to support customer missions. LS-3 is part of the company's LizzieSat multi-mission constellation focused on providing space-based data services, integrated sensors, and autonomous on-orbit computing capabilities to government and commer NASA backs CINEMA smallsat fleet to probe Earth magnetotail
NASA has selected Dartmouth College and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, to begin developing a mission that will shed more light on the growing impacts of space weather.
The Cross-scale Investigation of Earths Magnetotail and Aurora (CINEMA) mission will unlock the secrets of the energy circulation through Earths magnetotail. The magnetotail is an ext New NASA Sensor Goes Hunting for Critical Minerals
Cradled in the nose of a high-altitude research airplane, a new NASA sensor has taken to the skies to help geoscientists map rocks hosting lithium and other critical minerals on Earth's surface some 60,000 feet below. In collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the flights are part of the largest airborne campaign of its kind in the country's history.
But that's just one of ma Laser experiment proposed to probe quantum nature of gravity
Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf have outlined an experiment in which light exchanges discrete packets of energy with gravitational waves, potentially revealing the long-sought quantum properties of gravity. In the proposed scheme, a laser beam interacts with a passing gravitational wave so that the light loses or gains an energy amount corresponding to one or more gravitons, Sentinel 6B begins sea level mapping campaign
Sentinel-6B has begun returning its first ocean measurements, providing initial maps of sea level across a wide area of the U.S. East Coast and the Atlantic Ocean after its November launch. The U.S.-European mission is designed to survey about 90 percent of Earth's oceans using high-precision radar altimetry to track changes in sea surface height that affect coastal communities and marine operat