Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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EXIT
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→ WHAT DO YOU WANT
TO DO TODAY?
Main building 28 AstroPlant
01 Space shop 29 Liftoff! Space Transportation for Europe
02 Space science 30 S wiss rocketeers
03 Solar system 31 Microgravity test facilities
04 Exoplanets 32 Columbus module
05 Multi-messenger astronomy 33 Model Space Station
06 Space Talks – Newton 34 Orion module
07 ESA at work 35 Destination Mars
36 Scionce2080
Main corridor
37 Planetary Robotics Lab
08 Software 4space
38 European Robotic Arm
09 Glow in the dark space
39 Guidance, Navigation & Control
10 Advanced Concepts
40 Watching and listening to the Sun
11 The Moon temple
41 EuroMoonMars and ExoHab
12 Satellite communications
13 Planetary society Escape
14 Space Safety & Clean Space 42 Space Expo shop
15 Space plane 43 ESA Academy
44 E SA Education for primary and
Lab corridor
secondary classrooms
16 Solar power and energy storage
45 E uropean Space Education Resource
17 Concurrent design facility Office
18 Earth watching 46 Exoplanet Zoo
19 High Tech in low gravity: 47 Science demonstrations
surviving and exploring the Moon
48 Cinema Paxi
20 Galileo, at your service
49 Take a space selfie
21 Spaceship EAC
50 Selfies with Paxi
22 Hypergravity centrifuge
51 First LEGO League
Open stage and promenade 52 Astronaut autographs
23 Open stage 53 Space Talks – Tennis Hall
24 From waste to taste – try our water
Meet our partners
recycling toilet
54 ESTEC fire engine
25 ESTEC’s driverless shuttle
55 NL Space Tent
Erasmus 56 Space Expo
26 Destination Moon and lunar quiz
27 Access to ESA Core Activities tool (AECA)
Welcome to ESA, the space agency for Europe. For the average cost of a single cinema ticket
per European citizen per year, ESA’s 22 Member States plus Canada and Slovenia come
together to work on every aspect of space activities. ESTEC, hosting today’s Open Day, is ESA’s
technical centre where new missions are designed, their industrial development is managed
and the resulting satellites are tested for flight in space. Technical experts and a suite of space
labs support the development of new technologies making future missions possible.
Global celebrations of Apollo’s achievements have made this the year of the Moon. These historic
human landings marked a highpoint in humankind’s ongoing fascination with our natural
satellite, which began with ancient myths and legends, and extends to this day.
Sometimes termed ‘the eighth continent’, the Moon has the equivalent surface area of North
and South America combined, with concentrations of precious metals including titanium,
platinum and rare Earth elements. Humankind’s six Apollo landings on the Moon to date
concentrated around the nearside lunar equator, so the higher latitudes remain unexplored.
The samples collected during Apollo, together with follow-on Moon missions, have transformed
scientific understanding of our natural satellite, conclusively showing there is water ice at the
lunar poles, and demonstrating the Moon may have been geologically active until comparatively
recently. ESTEC was among the first places to study these samples. NASA’s then Director of
its Manned Spacecraft Center, Robert Gilruth, delivered a sample of lunar dust gathered from
Apollo 12–14 here in September 1971. A research group tested its electrostatic charging
behaviour in vacuum.
Earth’s natural satellite remained a key topic of study during the years that followed, including
candidate mission planning, culminating in ESA’s first mission to the Moon. SMART-1, Small
Mission for Advanced Research in Technology, was tested at ESTEC in 2002 ahead of its
launch the following year. Its main goal was to demonstrate a solar electric propulsion ion
drive, but the minisatellite also mapped the whole of the Moon between November 2004
and September 2006. Europe’s first lunar mission ending with a controlled crash – the first
mark Europe has left on the Moon, but surely not the last. Some of the experience gained
during those years was applied when three European instruments flew to the Moon as part
of India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission.
ESA is contributing the service module to NASA’s Orion, the spacecraft that will return humans
to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis programme, and is collaborating with all the International
Space Station partners on the Lunar Gateway, a station around the Moon to act as a base for
both robotic and human explorers. ESA is also working with Russian space agency Roscosmos
on future Luna missions, contributing landing systems and science payloads, including a drill
to search out water ice and other chemicals under the surface.
ESA is leading an ambitious mission to return samples from the lunar South Pole, called
Heracles, in development with Japan’s space agency, JAXA, and the Canadian Space Agency.
Another proposed ESA mission, Lunar Pathfinder, is being planned with European industry for
lunar orbit. Further ahead, ESA’s Director General Jan Wörner has proposed a ‘Moon village’
as a model for cooperative international lunar settlement.
Earth and the Moon seen together in space from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft
→ MEET THE ASTRONAUTS
Walt Cunningham Alexander Gerst
NASA astronaut Walt Cunningham made German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst
history as part of the first crewed Apollo joined ESA in 2009. In 2014 he spent
mission, Apollo 7 in October 1968. This 11- six months on the ISS for the Blue Dot
day flight in Earth orbit proved the reliability mission. Then in 2017 Alexander became
of Apollo’s Command Module, preparing the the first of ESA’s 2009 class of astronauts
way to the Moon. Walt went on to serve to return to space for the second time, with
as chief astronaut on Skylab programme, the six-month Horizons mission to ISS. He
becoming closely involved in the crew systems is currently based at ESA’s Astronaut Centre
design of the first US space station. A former in Cologne, Germany.
US Marine Corps pilot, he was born in Creston,
Iowa, USA, in 1931. Rusty Schweickart
NASA astronaut Russell “Rusty” Schweickart
André Kuipers was the first person to fly the Lunar Module
This Dutch ESA astronaut, a medical doctor, in space, testing it in Earth orbit during the
has flown twice to the ISS: his first flight Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. He also
in 2004 involved an 11-day stay, followed undertook the first spacewalk of the Apollo
by a six-month mission in 2011–2012; programme using the new Extravehicular
this second 193-day spaceflight broke the Mobility Unit spacesuit. Rusty is the co-
record for longest European spaceflight at founder of the Association of Space Explorers
that at that time. Formerly employed by the and, subsequently, the B612 Foundation,
Royal Netherlands Air Force to research space devoted to protecting Earth from asteroids.
sickness, André was born in Amsterdam, the A former US Air Force pilot, Rusty was born
Netherlands, in 1958. in New Jersey, USA, in 1935.
© ESA–P. Sebirot, 2014
© ESA/NASA
→ SPECIAL GUESTS
Also giving presentations on the day… (see lectures page for details)
14.30 Norman Heeney, 14.00 Silvia Bayon, ESA 14.30 Mark and Sem, TV
Apollo-era journalist: Reporting System Engineer for Planetary presenters: Kids Science
the Moon landings Missions: Working on an ESA Show
14.00 deep space mission
–
15.00 14.30 Marco Falcone,
Head of Galileo System Office:
Making Galileo
15.10 Mark McCaughrean, 15.00 Ninja Menning, Head 15.15 Erik Kuulkers, ESA
Senior ESA Science Advisor: of ESA Newsroom & Media Project Scientist: Apollo 15
Who owns space? Relations: Communicating instrument
15.00 with the European public
– 15.50 Planetary Society:
16.00 Direct imaging of exoplanets 15.30 Shumit Das, ESA
Structural Engineer: Space
structures and materials
Space Talks ESA Education Autograph Sessions
TIME
Tennis Hall Dance Hall Sports Hall
10.30 ESA astronaut 10.15 Live space science 10.30 Rusty Schweickart,
10.00 André Kuipers & journalist Demonstrations with ESA US Apollo astronaut
– Sander Koenen: College tour Internal Research Fellows
11.00 10.30 Alexander Gerst,
talk Sandor Kruk & Hans Huybrighs
ESA astronaut
11.30 ESA astronaut 11.30 Walt Cunningham,
Alexander Gerst: Space US Apollo astronaut
Horizons
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→ MAIN BUILDING
This building accommodates a restaurant, a conference centre and ESTEC’s technical library.
It was designed by renowned Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck.
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→ MAIN CORRIDOR
Think of this 200-m-long corridor – dating back to ESTEC’s earliest days – as the backbone
of the establishment, linking together administration and project offices with technical
laboratories and the satellite testing area.
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→ LAB CORRIDOR
This is home to ESTEC’s suite of technical laboratories, for the testing of candidate materials,
components and equipment for space, as well as investigating post-launch mission ‘anomalies’.
16 Solar power and energy Come and discover the way we prepare
storage the future.
In space the only way to power our satellites 18 Earth watching
is to harvest solar radiation from our sun; The single location where we can learn
solar arrays convert this radiation into power. about our planet is found nowhere on Earth
Solar cells must be assembled in specific but high above it. Find out how satellites
ways according to mission needs. In advance not only help us understand our changing
a number of tests must be performed to ensure world, but also how they are used to improve
that the solar arrays can withstand the harsh our daily lives. Meet up with Earth observation
space environment, carried out here at the experts to learn more about Europe’s latest
Solar Generators section. Would you like to see missions to planet Earth, including the fleet
a solar cell glow? Would you like to learn of Copernicus Sentinels.
more about the difference between space and 19 H
igh Tech in low gravity:
terrestrial solar technologies? Or perhaps
you are interested in how a solar cell can
surviving and exploring
generate power in the first place? To find the Moon
out, come here. How do we ensure proper living on the
Moon? How do we make sure we are safe
17 Concurrent Design Facility and self-sufficient? No matter how we shape
Design your own mission: ESA’s Concurrent our future moon base, we have to both
Design Facility (CDF) is a state-of-the-art embrace and shield from the most hostile
facility equipped with a network of computers, environment human kind has ever seen! ESA
multimedia devices and software tools, is driving space technologies and materials
allowing a team of experts from several science to the outmost maturity to enable
disciplines to apply the concurrent engineering safe exploration and sound protection against
method to the design of future space missions. vacuum, radiation and micro-meteorites.
Get a flavour of how to extract and use the European Commission and the European
resources on another planet in-situ (straight GNSS Agency (GSA). Researchers are studying
away), find out how to test and qualify the very future of navigation, anywhere on
spacecraft and habitats to be fit for space, earth, in the sky and in space through our
and hold your breath watching numerous Navigation Innovation and Support Programme.
live demonstrations of what it means to be 21 Spaceship EAC
in space. Spaceship EAC is the group working at the
20 Galileo, at your service European Astronaut Centre near Cologne,
Since December 2016, Galileo has been Germany, on how to be able to live on
providing free navigation data on your the Moon. The topics treated range from
smartphones, tablets, and a wide variety processing Moon dust to extract oxygen and
of professional equipment. Did you know it water, 3D print it to make tools and objects
is also considerably improving the efficiency useful for life on the Moon, to designing
of search and rescue operations? Come and devices to make astronauts’ life easier.
discover how the 26 satellites are also used 22 Hypergravity centrifuge
in various applications and play the NavGame Part of ESTEC’s Life Sciences Lab, ESA’s
to win your mini Galileo hologram. ESA has Large Diameter Centrifuge is set spinning
also developed EGNOS, an augmentation behind bulletproof glass to produce extreme
system used in aviation. Both EGNOS and gravity levels for scientific experiments.
Galileo are now under the management of
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→ OPEN STAGE
AND PROMENADE
Our main parking lot is being turned over to the open stage for space storytelling as well as
exhibits by ESA partners.
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→ ERASMUS
This is ESTEC’s centre of competence for human spaceflight activities, supporting ISS operations
and experiments while assisting users of all ESA’s microgravity experimentation platforms,
from a drop tower to parabolic flights to experimental capsule and the ISS – and beyond.
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→ ESCAPE
Space to relax: Escape is the social and recreation centre for ESTEC’s 2 700 personnel, with sports
facilities, club rooms, a bar and canteen, the focus for educational information during the Open Day.
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54 ESTEC fire engine find out all about astronauts and see how
Did you know ESTEC has its own fire they live and work in space.
service? A fully equipped fire engine is
based onsite and can you try out shooting Weekend Van De
its fire hoses. Wetenschap
ESA’s annual Open Day in the Netherlands
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takes place as part of the national Dutch
NL Space is the umbrella organisation for
science weekend, Weekend Van De
Dutch space companies and institutions.
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The NL Space Tent brings together space
Wetenschap. The public is invited into the
worlds of science and technology through
experts and businesses from across the
invitations to visit research sites across the
Netherlands to present their world-class
country.
solutions to global challenges. Learn about
their cutting-edge technology, ground
breaking science and satellite applications
for everyday life on Earth.
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Once you leave the grounds of ESTEC,
remember to visit Space Expo at a bargain
half price!
Europe’s first permanent space exhibit
attracts more than 90 000 visitors annually
– one third of them school children. Experience
the simulated launch of an Ariane rocket
‘live’; discover the world of satellites with
test models of European space missions,
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→ SECURITY AND
SAFETY INFO
This is a summary of rules that apply while visiting the ESTEC site.
Contact ESTEC Security or an ESA volunteer for more information.
Emergency procedure
In case of emergency such as fire, accident or incident, call:
ESTEC emergency number 071 565 8040
You will be asked to provide the following information:
your name, location, nature of emergency and number of people involved.
Evacuation procedure
In an emergency evacuation, stop activities, remain calm and follow instructions.
Disclaimer
ESA accepts no responsibility for any injury to visitors or loss or damage
to their personal belongings during their visit to the ESTEC site.
On entering the site you acknowledge that you have read and are familiar
with these ESTEC safety and security rules.
The ESA Open Day is being filmed and photographed for communication purposes.
By attending the event you agree to being filmed and photographed and that
such material can be used for ESA’s own purposes.
Share your Open Day experience with the world!
Use hashtag #ESAOpenDay #WvdW
An ESA Production
Copyright © 2019 European Space Agency