Events & Programs

This talk will introduce the Paris-based 18 member inter-governmental space research organisation and highlight some of its many past and current achievements in visiting the moon, Mars and Venus and landing on Saturn's moon Titan and, in 2014, Comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Europe has had a critical role in providing some 50 per cent of the pressurised elements of the International Space Station and it re-supplies the Station by employing the only the fully automated docking system currently in use. In addition to these achievements in exploration and human spaceflight, ESA has developed highly successful Ariane launch systems and satellite systems for telecommunications, Earth observation and navigation. These have been exploited operationally, giving rise to such organisations as Arianespace, Eutelsat and Eumetsat.

ESA increasingly works closely with the European Union (EU) and a Framework Agreement between the two entered into force in 2004. They are currently engaged in developing operational global navigation satellite systems (EGNOS and Galileo) and environmental monitoring (GMES). The second half of 2009 will see the start of a consultative process to identify Europe's ambitions for contributing to the global space exploration endeavour and the potential role of the EU in this.

Discover more about ESA's role and missions on their website.

About Alan Cooper

Alan Cooper is the European Space Policy Implementation Manager in the Director General's Policy Office at the European Space Agency and Secretary to the Director General's Directors' Committee. He joined ESA in July 2007 from the Space Policy and Coordination Unit in the European Commission, where he had been involved in drafting a major Commission communications relating to the European Space Policy and Global Monitoring for the Environemnt and Security (GMES). Prior to that, he was Director, Policy and Finance, in the British National Space Centre, during which time he chaired one of ESA's main delegate bodies.

In a varied career in the British civil service, Alan Cooper worked abroad on exchange to the Australian Public Service, which included nine months in the Australian Space Office.

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