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esa science vision
We **drive** Europe’s space science vision
We **drive** Europe’s space science vision
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ESA’s Science Programme is driven by humankind’s biggest questions about the Universe, organised into long-term planning cycles. The Horizon 2000 plan (defined in 1983) led to missions like Rosetta, while Horizon 2000 Plus enabled Gaia and BepiColombo. Cosmic Vision (2004) guides missions into the mid-2030s, including Juice, Solar Orbiter and Euclid. ESA will continue its legacy of scientific excellence and global collaboration with Voyage 2050, setting the agenda for the next era of space exploration.
Mission portfolio
A diverse mission portfolio for scientific discovery

ESA’s Science Programme plans are defined by different classes of missions to fulfil specific roles:

European-led flagship missions launched approximately once per decade.

SOHO, Cluster, XMM-Newton, Rosetta, Herschel, Gaia, BepiColombo, Juice, LISA

Artist’s impression of the XMM-Newton mission. Credit for the spacecraft: ESA; Background image: ESA/ATG medialab

ESA-led or with international partners; approximately two per decade.

Giotto, Hipparcos, HST, Ulysses, ISO, Huygens (as a contribution to the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission), Integral, Mars Express, Planck, Solar Orbiter, Euclid, Plato, Ariel, Envision

Artist’s impression of the Planck mission. Credit for the spacecraft: ESA; Background image: ESA/Planck Collaboration

Small, low-cost and allowing for national leadership and rapid development.

Cheops

Artist’s impression of the Cheops mission. Credit for the spacecraft: ESA / ATG medialab; Background image: ESA 

Focus on innovative implementations using existing technology, follow a fast development path (less than ten years), and allow member states to play leading roles in missions. Higher cost-cap than Small missions, can be launched alongside a Medium-class mission.

Comet Interceptor (to be launched with Ariel)

Artist’s impression of the Comet Interceptor mission. Credit for the spacecraft: ESA; Background image: public domain

Similar to Fast, but smaller and cheaper, developed within five years (from early study to launch), opening opportunities for new communities and new implementation scenarios.

An exploratory first call was issued in 2025.

ESA call for missions banner. Credit: ESA.

ESA participation in a partner-led mission, providing European scientists with access to otherwise unavailable data or participation in science teams.

Suzaku (JAXA), Akari (JAXA), Corot (CNES), Hinode (JAXA), Chang’e1 (CNSA), Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO), Phobos-Soil (Roscosmos), IRIS (NASA), Microscope (CNES), Hitomi (JAXA), XRISM (JAXA), Einstein Probe (CAS), MMX (JAXA), Roman (NASA), Solar-C (JAXA)

Artist’s impression of the XRISM mission. Credit for the spacecraft: JAXA; Background image: ESA, NASA and Peter Anders (Göttingen University Galaxy Evolution Group, Germany)

Cosmic Vision
Europe’s scientific compass for space exploration

Cosmic Vision is the current framework guiding the implementation and launch of missions up to the mid-2030s. Initiated in 2004 with a call for themes, it was developed through extensive community input to define the most important open questions in space science. These four questions are at the heart of the Science Programme’s unique fleet of Large, Medium, Small and Fast class missions:

What are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life?
How does the Solar System work?
What are the fundamental physical laws of the Universe?
How did the Universe originate and what is it made of?
Big missions for big questions

ESA’s ambitious Large-class missions are tackling some of the biggest questions in space science. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will investigate if Jupiter’s three large ocean moons have the conditions for life. LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, will be the first space-based observatory dedicated to studying gravitational waves: ripples in the fabric of space-time emitted during the most powerful events in the Universe, such as pairs of merging black holes.

At the same time, NewAthena, the largest X-ray observatory ever built, will investigate some of the hottest and most energetic phenomena in the Universe. It will also be able to follow-up on gravitational wave events detected by LISA.

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Powering progress with medium missions

ESA’s fleet of Medium-class missions are well underway with Solar Orbiter returning the closest views of our Sun, and Euclid probing the mysterious realm of dark matter and dark energy. Plato and Ariel are the next exoplanet missions designed to detect and characterise worlds beyond our own, while Venus exploration will continue with Envision providing a complete view of our neighbouring planet from its core, surface, atmosphere and beyond.

Maximising impact with smaller missions

Cheops, ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite, exemplifies how even a Small-mission can make a significant impact in the rapidly evolving field of exoplanet science. Similarly, the joint ESA-China Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, Smile, highlights the importance of collaboration in achieving essential science. Meanwhile, the innovative Comet Interceptor kicks off the F-class mission series. It will wait in Earth orbit, ready to race towards a pristine comet or interstellar object just beginning its journey into the inner Solar System. ARRAKIHS will further expand this new class of missions, exploring the faintest structures of the Universe to shed light on its hidden matter.

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Voyage 2050
Europe’s long-term vision for space science

Ocean moons of the giant planets, temperate exoplanets and the Milky Way, and the early Universe, are the three exciting themes defined by the science community as the top-level priorities for the next series of Large-class missions within the Voyage 2050 framework. Medium-class missions will continue to play a key role in enabling Europe to lead missions across all domains of space science. For ambitious missions in the second half of this century, technology development in areas such as cold atom interferometry, X-ray interferometry, cryogenic sample return technology, and advanced power sources for deep space missions will be required. With Voyage 2050, Europe will continue to set new standards in science and innovation for decades to come.

To Enceladus

The stage is set for the world’s first in-situ astrobiology mission to an icy moon: in 2022 Saturn’s moon Enceladus was identified as the target for the first Large-class mission of Voyage 2050. This ambitious mission will investigate the habitability potential, prebiotic chemistry, biosignatures, and surface-interior interaction of this dynamic ocean world.

Artist’s impression depicting thermal plumes venting from the southern polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Credits: ESA/Science Office.

The M7 mission candidates

Studies of three candidates for the next Medium-class mission slot (M7) are ongoing, with one planned to be selected in 2026 for detailed study prior to adoption into the Science Programme, which is scheduled for 2028.

THE CANDIDATES ARE:

M-Matisse: Mars Magnetosphere ATmosphere Ionosphere and Space weather SciencE

Plasma Observatory: Earth’s plasma environment

THESEUS: Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor to study high-energy cosmic events

Voyage 2050 is the next planning cycle of the ESA Science Programme. Credit: ESA.

Coming soon

A selection process began in 2025 to identify diverse Medium, Fast and Mini-fast mission candidates that will define Voyage 2050’s scientific priorities for the late 2030s.

Artist’s impression of a temperate exoplanet in our Milky Way. Credits: ESA/Science Office

more about space science
Discover our science missions

Explore a subset of the ESA Science Programme missions here. Additional mission pages are in progress.
The currently available mission pages are ESA's flagship missions launched from 2013 and to be launched (L-class), and the ones in development (M- and F-class).

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ESA's billion star surveyor
Gaia
Gaia is determining the position of nearly two billion objects, creating the largest and most precise 3D map of the Milky Way.
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Advanced telescope for high-energy astrophysics
NewAthena
NewAthena will map hot gas structures to determine their physical properties, and search for supermassive black holes.
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Exploring the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants
Juice
Juice is on its way to Jupiter to perform detailed investigations of the gas giant and assessing the habitability potential of its large icy satellites.
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Imaging Earth’s magnetic environment
Smile
Smile will build a complete understanding of the Sun-Earth connection by measuring the solar wind and its dynamic interaction with the magnetosphere.
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First gravitational wave detector in space
LISA
LISA will be the first space-based gravitational wave observatory, studying fluctuations in spacetime produced by powerful events such as merging black holes.
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Analysing exoplanet atmospheres
Ariel
Ariel will perform a chemical census of a large and diverse sample of exoplanets by analysing their atmospheres.
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Visiting a pristine comet
Comet Interceptor
Comet Interceptor will be the first mission to fly by a pristine comet as it enters the inner Solar System.
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Exploring the habitability of Saturn’s Icy Moons
L4 to Enceladus
The first flagship mission of Voyage 2050 will explore Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, searching for clues about the potential for life.
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Understanding why Venus is so different from Earth
Envision
Envision will provide a complete view of Venus from its inner core to upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently.
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Exploring the dark Universe
Euclid
Euclid is exploring the nature of dark energy and dark matter, revealing the history of the Universe’s accelerated expansion and the growth of cosmic structure.
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Terrestrial planet hunter
Plato
Plato will study terrestrial planets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars, and characterise these stars.
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the sun up close
Solar Orbiter
Solar Orbiter is studying the Sun up close, collecting high-resolution images and data from our star and its heliosphere.
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Investigating Mercury's mysteries
BepiColombo
BepiColombo is Europe’s first mission to Mercury, sent to study the mysterious planet’s interior, surface, atmosphere and magnetosphere to understand its origins.
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