The CREX-2 sounding rocket mission was successfully launched from @AndoyaSpace in Norway on 1 December as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative, a collaborative international effort to understand specific, fundamental issues in space and earth science. The NASA-built four-stage Oriole IV sounding rocket carried the payload to an apogee of 630kms. The missions sought to better understand a funnel-shaped gap in our planet’s magnetic field, called the polar cusp, that gives solar wind a direct line of access to Earth's atmosphere.

.@ArianeGroup and has completed a series of six tests on a pair of propellant tanks at the company's facility in Vernon, France. The tests are the first technological milestone in the development of the reusable Themis rocket booster demonstrator. During these tests, the tanks were filled and then drained of cryogenic propellants. According to @esa, the tests were performed to "validate the fluidic and electrical processes and sequences for the correct operation" of the tanks.

.@ESA initiated its first astronaut selection process on 28 March 1977. The effort was the result of an agreement made with @NASA 4 years earlier that would see European astronauts join space shuttle missions in exchange for ESA supplying the Spacelab reusable science lab. The astronauts would assume what was then a brand new role board a spacecraft, payload specialist. They would have some generic astronaut training but mostly they would be familiarising themselves with the experiments that would be flown aboard their mission.

No, that's not Starship. It's Themis! I don't think I've seen that rendering before - it's great! For those of you not in the know, Themis is a technology demonstration programme initiated by @ESA to develop a reusable rocket first stage.

https://twitter.com/ArianeGroup/status/1442571540516671489

The initiative is part of the agency's Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP) which, according to ESA, is focused on "system studies and research activities to foster new technologies capable of delivering performance and reliability coupled with reduced operational costs"

What the @Arianespace Ariane 5 would have looked like in its @esa Hermes configuration. I would have loved to have seen this thing fly. Credit: ESA For context, Hermes was an ambitious crewed spaceflight program created by @CNES in 1985 and later adopted by ESA. The program was canceled in 1992 because of its projected cost and some geopolitical developments with Russia that enabled ESA to utilize Soyuz.