ESA
October 2026
8 stories.
- MMX lifts off to Mars's moon Phobos
ESA published an image showing the launch of JAXA's MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) spacecraft toward Mars's moon Phobos. The source is an image caption with no further mission details.
- Celebrating BepiColombo, three words at a time
ESA released a 3.5-minute video marking the sixth anniversary of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo launch, in which mission team members describe the spacecraft in three words. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Mercury on 9 December 2026, after eight years in transit.
- Euclid discovers new comet
The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope discovered its first previously unknown comet in images taken between 16 and 24 September 2026. The find is a milestone for the mission's survey work.
- Where winds blow and lava flows
The European Space Agency published an image titled "Where winds blow and lava flows" in its multimedia gallery. The page text contains only the caption, so the specific locations and sensor details are not stated.
- Mars moon lander set to launch on 19 October
JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is scheduled to launch on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center at 04:41 JST on 20 October 2026. It aims to be the first mission to collect a sample from Mars's moon Phobos and return it to Earth, with NASA, CNES, DLR and ESA as collaborators.
- Solar Orbiter tracks origin of mysterious magnetic switchbacks
ESA's Solar Orbiter flew through an S-shaped magnetic kink, called a switchback, in the solar wind. By fingerprinting particles within it, the spacecraft traced the structure back to the Sun's surface, shedding light on solar magnetism that drives dangerous solar storms.
- Mars's oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought
Scientists combining ESA's Mars Express observations with a state-of-the-art meteorological model of Mars found evidence of possibly exotic physics behind the planet's most curious cloud. The finding is a science result rather than a commercial milestone.
- Webb captures commotion from nebula's stellar jets
ESA published an image from the James Webb Space Telescope showing stellar jets disturbing the gas of a nebula. The source text is a caption only, so no further details such as distance, instruments, or observation dates are available.
Headlines link to esa.int. Summaries are ours, 1–2 lines; read the full story at the source.
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