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The European Space Agency (ESA) was established in 1975 and is responsible for coordinating the exploration of space by its member countries, which numbered 18 in 2010: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Canada as an associated member. ESA’s program includes human space flight, primarily through participation in the International Space Station, and a variety of scientific missions. Of particular interest to astrobiology is Gaia, an all-sky astrometric survey mission that will detect hundreds, if not thousands, of extrasolar planets. ESA is also committed to the exploration of Mars, most notably with the successful Mars Express Mission launched in 2003, and the ill-fated Beagle-2 Lander in the exploration of Titan with the successful landing at the surface of the satellite of the Huygens probein 2005, and in the...
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Latham, D.W. (2011). European Space Agency. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11274-4_1778
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11274-4_1778
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11271-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-11274-4
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