Space-enabled tests are underway to empower healthcare workers, civil protection volunteers and members of the emergency services to help other people.

As the immediate crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic fades in Europe, extensive testing systems are needed to enable the vital economic recovery.

Commercial flight trials that use satellite-enabled communications to reduce the environmental impact of flying are scheduled to commence once normal traffic levels resume.

The ESAIL microsatellite for tracking ships worldwide – developed under an ESA Partnership Project – has completed its accommodation on Vega’s new dispenser for small satellites and is ready for launch. 

A deployable laboratory that can test frontline healthcare staff, civil protection volunteers and police forces for the coronavirus has left Belgium and is on its way to Piedmont, Italy.

A navigation app that guides people on safer, more enjoyable bike journeys will be launched later this summer as social-distancing measures encourage more cyclists to take to the road.

Some €10 million is now available for proposals to use space to improve healthcare and distance learning in response to the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to the Italian national delegation to ESA.

A fully reconfigurable, software-defined, standardised satellite for the commercial telecommunications market is under development, as an ESA Partnership Project.

The second node in the most sophisticated laser communication network ever designed is ready to go into service.

Launch conditions together with the need to operate at high power levels presented a particular challenge when Airbus Defence and Space engineers – under the ARTES Competitiveness & Growth programme – set about developing a new series of Ku-band antenna feed chains.