ESA enjoys successful week at Farnborough airshow

ESA enjoys successful week at Farnborough airshow European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher and three ESA astronauts joined thousands of innovators last week at a global aerospace conference held in the UK. Held from 20 to 24 July, Farnborough International Airshow was attended by more than 100 000 people from 114 countries. It featured nearly 1500 exhibitors from industry, space agencies and other government organisations. ESA’s contributions included a new milestone for its Argonaut lander and numerous outreach and panel sessions featuring three astronauts from the UK: ESA astronaut Rosemary Coogan and members of the ESA astronaut reserve Meganne Christian and John McFall. A step forward for Argonaut Farnborough included an announcement about ESA’s Argonaut programme, which is developing a series of landers that will be capable of delivering 1.5 tonnes of exploration-enabling cargo to the Moon’s surface, starting with the first mission in 2030. On 21 July, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher attended the formalisation of a pre-authorisation to proceed agreement between OHB System and MDA Space UK, an important step in the development of critical lunar landing sensors for Argonaut. The agreement allows MDA Space to immediately begin engineering activities and procure long-lead items from its UK base of operations with support from the UK Space Agency, ahead of the anticipated full contract. Subject to a final agreement, MDA Space is expected to supply LiDAR systems for Argonaut’s inaugural mission to the Moon. Pioneers of Tomorrow Later in the week, Rosemary Coogan, Meganne Christian, and John McFall participated in Farnborough airshow’s dedicated Pioneers of Tomorrow public outreach day, which focuses on encouraging schoolkids to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths. The ESA astronauts took part in the UK rocketry competition, which gives young people the opportunity to learn the skills needed to build and execute space missions. They also led several sessions, highlighting their experiences of the astronaut selection process, the important of teamwork and resilience, and the numerous career and learning opportunities available in space industry. Explore the images below to learn more about ESA’s week at Farnborough: