As part of the selection process of the next Medium-class mission of the ESA Science Programme, the proposing teams are invited to give a Public Presentation on their respective missions. The missions - M-Matisse, Plasma Observatory and Theseus - have been under study since 2022, with the final down-selection to one mission scheduled to take place in June 2026.
The Public Presentation will be held on 22 April 2026 at ESA Headquarters, Paris.
Registration is mandatory for all attendees and is now open.
ESA welcomes applications from scientists interested in pursuing research projects based on data publicly available in the ESA Space Science Archives.
The ESA Archival Research Visitor Programme is open to scientists who are affiliated with institutes in ESA Member States and Cooperating States. All visits must comply with the ESA security directives, which may necessitate additional checks. Early-career scientists including students are particularly encouraged to apply. Research projects can be carried out at ESAC and at ESTEC. Visits last typically 1-3 months. ESA covers travel costs and provides support for lodging expenses and meals. We encourage applications from women and minorities. The evaluation process is anonymised to ensure equal opportunities for all applicants.
Getting ready for Plato's Guest Observers Programme
ESA is looking forward to Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), scheduled for launch in under a year. Plato will monitor a wide field for several years, delivering imagettes and light curves for hundreds of thousands of stars. Its goals include finding terrestrial planets in habitable zones and advancing asteroseismology, making most data public right after validation.
ESA will invite Guest Observer proposals for complementary science. The First Announcement of Opportunity is foreseen to open on 7 April and close on 21 May, offering 8% telemetry for new targets, upgraded modes, and proprietary access. We encourage interested proposers to consult the available material, join community initiatives, and complete a short questionnaire to get ready together.
Ariel Open Conference 2026: Science, Mission & Community 17-19 March 2026, ESA/ECSAT, Harwell Campus, Didcot, UK, hosted at the ESA Magali Vaissiere Conference Centre
The Ariel Mission Consortium and ESA Ariel Science Team are delighted to invite the international scientific community to attend and present at the Ariel Open Conference 2026, at the ESA Magali Vaissiere Conference Centre, UK. The conference will provide a summary of Ariel's science, instruments and operations and present the activities that the Ariel team has planned to engage the science community.
The X-ray Universe 2026 8-11 June 2026, Elche, Spain
This conference is the seventh meeting in the "The X-ray Universe" series, aimed at encompassing a broad range of high-energy astrophysics topics, from solar system studies to cosmology. It will provide a showcase for results and discoveries from XMM-Newton and other missions, discussing as well the scientific potential of future missions and the evolution of the scientific analysis landscape.
PV 2026 - Ensuring Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data 23-25 June 2026, ESAC, Villanueva de la Canada, Madrid, Spain and online PV 2026 bring together the community to present and discuss the experiences, feedback and prospects for efficient scientific and technical data management systems along a variety of themes including long-term data preservation, adding value to data and facilitation of data use, impact of AI and ML, governance, funding and policy for long term preservation, and metrics for data archives usage.
INTEGRAL Legacy Conference 2026 19 - 23 October 2026, Orsay, France INTEGRAL is crucial in our understanding of high energy astrophysical phenomena, permitting studies of bright transient events, which made it a cornerstone for multi-messenger astronomy, and of elusive signals from faint gamma-ray sources. This has fostered collaborations with other missions that will enhance INTEGRAL's legacy in supporting new missions and answering new astrophysical questions.
European Space Agency, D/SCI Directorate of Science
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