posted 04-20-2025 03:11 PM            

For half a century, the European Space Agency has been serving Europe as its space agency, inspiring its citizens and providing them with multifold public value.

On 30 May 1975, the Convention was signed by 10 States and has since now expanded to 23 Member States, two Associate Members and one Cooperating State.

posted 12-13-2025 10:13 AM               

The Western European nations decided to have two agencies: one concerned with developing a launch system, ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation), of which Renzo Carrobio di Carrobio became the first Secretary General from 1964 to 1971, and the other the precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organisation), led by Pierre Auger. The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962. From 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites, but ELDO was not able to deliver a launch vehicle. Both agencies struggled with the underfunding and diverging interests of their participants.

The ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, when ESRO was merged with ELDO.