|
The European Space Agency (ESA) is an organization of 15 countries that pool financial and intellectual resouces for the purposes of sending rockets into space. The ESA is headquarter in Paris France, with a launch site at Kourou in French Guiana. Parts of the orgnization includes: the European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) located in the Netherlands; the European Space Operations Center (ESOC), based in Germany; the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), based in Germany; and the European Astronaut Center (EAC) based in Germany.
Member countries include: Austria; Belgium; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Ireland; Italy; Netherlands; Norway; Portugal; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; and the United Kingdom.
The ESA was founded on April 1, 1974 when the European Launch Development Organisation (ELDO), founded in 1964 and the European Space Research Organization (ERSO), founded in 1962, merged togther. The original organization included 10 countries; Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and West Germany.
|