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Call for Expressions of Interest to become Member of the AWG/SSEWG and/or SSAC
ESA’s science advisory structure is the main channel for ensuring an efficient relationship between ESA and the scientific community in Europe and is an essential element for the good conduct of the Agency’s scientific objectives.
The Director of Science recently issued a call to invite scientists affiliated with institutions in the ESA Member States to express their interest to become members of Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC), the Astronomy Working Group (AWG), and the Solar System and Exploration Working Group (SSEWG).
The goal is to update a pool of potential candidates to be considered in future years to replace members completing their mandate, guaranteeing proper discipline balance and various diversity criteria in the composition of the SSAC, AWG, and SSEWG.
The deadline is 3 September 2025 at 12:00 (noon) CET.
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Solar Orbiter gets world-first views of the Sun’s poles
Solar Orbiter, the joint ESA-NASA mission launched in February 2020, has for the first time captured images of the Sun’s poles from outside the ecliptic plane. Thanks to a Venus gravity assist manoeuvre, its orbit tilted ~17° below the solar equator, allowing the spacecraft to image the south pole directly. Its instruments revealed the structure of different layers of the solar atmosphere, from plasma flows to the south pole’s magnetic field. Doppler measurements of the structures related to the nascent solar wind from this high-latitude viewpoint promise to revolutionise our understanding of its origins. The full “pole-to-pole” dataset from all ten instruments is expected by October 2025, and as the orbit climbs to 33° by 2029, increasingly detailed view of the poles will follow.
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Date and content of next Gaia Data Release
The fourth Gaia data release (Gaia DR4) is planned for December 2026. This massive release will contain catalogues and data products derived by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis consortium from the first 5.5 years of Gaia's observations.
Gaia DR4 will be of higher precision and accuracy, contain many new data products, and have a much larger data volume compared to previous releases. It is anticipated that Gaia DR4 will lead to another major leap in our understanding of the Milky Way and the cosmos.
Gaia’s fifth and legacy data release, covering all 10.5 years of data collected by the spacecraft, will be released not before the end of 2030.
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Vacancy: Cheops Project Scientist – advance notice
The Office of Science Engagement and Oversight (SCI-E) at ESA will open a position this summer for a Project Scientist (PS) for the Cheops mission. The PS will lead scientific engagement, ensuring the mission’s visibility and scientific return in collaboration with the Cheops PI and Science Team. The role includes coordination with ESA’s exoplanet missions (Plato, Ariel), outreach, and participation in the ESA Science Faculty. As Cheops Mission Representative, the PS will oversee ESA’s contribution through post-operations, interfacing with the consortium, operations, and PRODEX teams. The official announcement will appear on ESA’s career website.
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Vacancy: Payload Validation Engineer
ESA's Directorate of Science is looking for a Payload Validation Engineer, to be based at ESTEC. This experienced Payload Validation engineer will be at the forefront to develop and characterise the next generation of Science detectors for use in Voyage 2050 missions.
One major task will be to lead the laboratory-based validation activities, with a focus on InfraRed focal plane technologies, including both detector and readout electronics aspects. Another major task is the definition and implemention of ESA-funded payload activities and predevelopments, which requires to identify and produce new instrument technologies required for the Directorate’s programmes and to participate in the preparation and implementation of the Voyage 2050 technology development plan.
The deadline for applications is 15 August 2025.
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Winter school: The exploration of Jupiter and its moons by ESA’s Juice mission
The school, taking place in Les Houches, France, on 25-30 January 2026 will cover the science topics of the Juice mission with the goal to best prepare the future exploitation and interpretation of its data. Key topics include Jupiter, its atmosphere and magnetosphere, the icy Galilean moons (with an emphasis on Ganymede), minor moons and the dust and ring system. Ground- and space- based observations recently obtained on the Jupiter system, as well as links with exoplanet science, will also be presented. The format of the school includes tutorials, seminar-like presentations, inspirational evening talks, poster sessions, a workshop on science planning and archive, and a roundtable on future missions to outer planets.
Deadline for registration and request for grants is 15 August 2025.
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Results of the 9th call for the Archival Research Visitor Programme
The review of the proposals for the ninth cycle of the Archival Research Visitor Programme is complete. We are happy to welcome five visiting scientists, who were selected by an independent committee and who will join ESA in autumn and winter 2025/2026 to pursue their scientific research using data in the ESA Space Science Archives. Topics of research include the Sun and the solar corona, gamma-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, and gravitational lenses.
The next deadline for applications is Friday 31 October 2025.
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Recent science highlights:
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Upcoming ESA conferences:
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EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2025
7-12 September 2025, Helsinki, Finland
During the meeting, ESA’s Directorate of Science will be present with several dedicated talks, as well as co-organizing sessions on missions in ESA’s solar system fleet. Throughout the week, there will be a series of presentations, workshops, and discussions in a dedicated ESA room focused on engaging with the community, addressing the needs of early career researchers, and providing support for our missions.
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The 3rd international Machine Learning in Heliophysics hybrid conference
22-26 September 2025, ESA/ESAC, Madrid, Spain and online
The ML-Helio conference will focus on data science techniques to tackle fundamental problems in space weather forecasting, automatic event identification, feature detection and tracking, as well as combination of physics-based models with ML techniques. It will consist of lectures, complemented by hands-on tutorials on Python tools and data resources available to the heliophysics machine learning community.
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Opening a new era of the dynamic Universe: XRISM International Conference 2025
20-24 October 2025, Kyoto, Japan
The first XRISM International Conference 2025 will be held on October 20-24, 2025, at “Kyoto Terrsa” in Kyoto, Japan: “Opening a new era of the Dynamic Universe”. This conference will highlight the scientific achievements from the first two years of XRISM and identify key questions we should address in the next observation cycles.
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The European Space Agency
