How many member states are there in European Space Agency?

European Space Agency (ESA), French Agence Spatiale Européenne (ASE), European space and space-technology research organization founded in 1975 from the merger of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), both established in 1964. ESA has 22 Member States. Members include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Slovenia is an associate member. Cooperative agreements have been signed by various countries, including Canada (1981), which participate in some ESA projects. Headquarters of the agency are in Paris.

Representatives of ESA’s member nations form the agency’s policy-making council. A science program committee established by convention deals with matters related to the mandatory science program; other such bodies may be formed by the council to assist in decision making. The chief executive and legal representative of ESA is the director general, assisted by an inspector general and the directors of various departments.

The principal components of the organization are (1) the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), located in Noordwijk, Netherlands, which houses the satellite project teams and testing facilities and is the agency’s main space science and technological research centre, (2) the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), located in Darmstadt, Germany, which is concerned with satellite control, monitoring, and data retrieval, (3) the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), located in Frascati, Italy, which supports the ESA Information Retrieval Service and the Earthnet program, the system by which remote sensing images are retrieved and distributed, (4) the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), located in Cologne, Germany, which is a training centre, and (5) the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), located in Villafranca del Castillo, Madrid, Spain, which holds scientific operations centres as well as archives. ESA also operates the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), a launch base in French Guiana.

Credit : Britannica 

Picture Credit : Google

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