A National Collaboration with the European Space Agency
So as to accomplish its mission of raising the profile of science and technology in Malta, the Malta Council for Science and Technology is considering setting up a national collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Such a collaboration will give Maltese students and researchers in academia and industry unprecedented opportunities to work on projects that are on the very cutting edge of scientific research with the most advanced equipment on earth and with world class specialists. The aim of the collaboration is to send students in the ESA labs for training and to get ESA related projects to Malta either in academia or in industry. 
The European Space Agency is the leading space research and technology organisation in Europe and one of the foremost in the world. It is non-military and has its headquarters in Paris with centres in:
a) Noordwijk the Netherlands (European space Research and technology Centre),
b) Darmstadt Germany (European Space Operation Centre)
c) Frascati Italy (ESA Centre for Earth Observation)
d) Cologne Germany (European Astronaut Centre)
e) Villafranca Spain (European Space Astronomy Centre)
f) Kourou French Guiana (Guiana Space Centre)
The organisation also has offices in Washington, Moscow and Brussels as well as several tracking stations in the Canary Islands, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden and Australia.
The aim of ESA is to provide for and promote cooperation among European states in space research and technology and their space applications with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space application systems. The organisation was founded in 1975 after joining the European Space Research Organisation and the European Launcher Development Programme which had been founded in the early 1960s. ESA was founded on many principles of the CERN model with the exception that ESA does not perform most of the research and development in house. Instead ESA subcontracts its project to European companies hence generating a strong European space industry in the private sector.
ESA is currently funded by 17 European member states and 5 cooperating states. It employs 1900 specialists in engineering, computing and the sciences with 40 000 people directly in industry and 250 000 people indirectly in the private sector. ESA has a budget of €3 billion per year, €800 million of which form part of the mandatory programme and the rest forming part of the optional programmes.
ESA has around 50 separate projects ranging over a myriad of fields. The mandatory scientific programme of which all ESA members are obliged to participate in includes studies of the sun and its effects on earth; studies of comets (fly through and landing), exploration of other planets (including breakthroughs such as the discovery of water on Mars and the furthest landing in human history on Saturn’s moon); studies of temperature extremes in the universe (from black holes and births of galaxies to background radiation and gravitational waves) and the new Space Telescope.
ESA’s optional programmes can be divided into four main groups:
1) Earth Observation:
a) Meteo and Environment:weather forecast change in climate and environmental change
b) Earth Studies: atmosphere, biosphere hydrosphere, cryosphere, earth’s interior, wind profiles, ocean salinity, soil moisture, aerosol processes, human activity impact
c) GMES - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security: monitoring alignment to the Kyoto protocol, monitoring floods, monitoring earthquakes, risk management, oil pollution.
2) Communication and Navigation:
a) Telecommunication systems: advanced telecom research and their powering systems, satellite internet, multimedia (news, sports, video conferencing), mobile communications (at sea, in deserts, in mountains), inter-satellite links, business applications particularly in banking, water, oil and gas pipeline control.
b) Galileo: 1st global civil satellite navigation system with an approved budget of €3.4 billion. It consist of 30 spacecrafts orbiting earth and will be free for anyone to access, it will provide commercial services for traffic and fleet management, safety enhancements for applications like aircraft landing and will provide services for safety and rescue operations.
3) Human Space Flight and Exploration:
ESA substantially participates in the International Space Station (ISS); the largest scientific collaboration in human history with a budget of €100 billion targeted to perform human physiological studies in outer space, studies of materials (superconductivity), and studies on futuristic space colonization and space travel. ESA’s contributions to the ISS include an advanced science laboratory (Columbus), an automated transfer vehicle, two of the three ISS nodes, the observation cupola, the robotic arm and an advanced data management system.
4) Launcher Programme:
a) Ariane Launcher: 9.5 ton payloads, known to be one of the biggest success stories in the history of space. It deploys satellite constellations into space as well as satellites that explore our solar system and orbits cargo to the ISS.
b) Vega Launcher: deploys 2 ton payloads into space, particularly useful for cheap lightweight commercial satellites
c) Support of Russian Human Space Flight Programme through Russian Soyuz launches at the ESA launch pad.
d) Research in propulsion, materials, structures, aerothermodynamics, avionics and performance monitoring.
Contact persons:
Dr. Ing. Nicholas J. Sammut (Chairman MCST) mob:7959 4696
Ms. Martina Castillo (Executive Science and Technology Officer MCST) Tel: 23602 122