About ESA The European Space Agency (ESA), formed on 31 May 1975. Itcumrently has 14 Member States: Austria, Belgium. Denmark ance, Germany, Ineland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Canada is also. partner in some of the ESA programmes. The ESA Science Pragramme has launched a series of Innovative and successful missions. Highlights of the prograrame Include: Giotto, which took the first oseup pictures of a met nucleus (Halley) and completed fybys of Comets and Grigg Skjellerup. Hipparcos, whicn nied the postions of the stars far Fe accurately than ever before and changed astronomers’ ideas about the scale of the local Universe ISO, whieh studies aimospheres, E coo! gas clouds and planetary rywhete it looked It found water in surprising abundance SOHO, whichis provicing new atmosphere and intefior. revealing salar tarnadaes and the probable cause ws oF the Sun's Ulysses, ine trst spacecraft o fy aver tne Sunt poles Hubble Space Telescope. a caliateratian with NASA. on the world’s most important and successful orbital observatory, ¢ to land on the mysterious surface gest moon, Titan in 2004, Part of the international CCLUSTER-I: EUROPE’S SPACE ARMADA TO STUDY THE SUN-EARTH CONNECTION CONTENTS 4 Rising from the Ashes EI Lift-Off! Cr BUS eee eal rl) oe) Sailing the Invisible Sea re RMU ae Relay tac is Pee a es eee ela pena