ESA Director General Jan Worner and President of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Dr Hiroshi Yamakawa took part in an online bilateral meeting on 4 February, confirming the status of cooperative activities between the two agencies.

The areas of cooperation include activities in Earth observation, space science and exploration. Dr Yamakawa also agreed to promote the JAXA/ESA relationship further with Josef Aschbacher, currently Director of Earth Observation and Director General elect of ESA.

Taking the opportunity of this bilateral meeting, two agreements concerning the cooperation on Hera, an ESA-led mission, and MMX, a JAXA-led mission, were concluded. Prof. Worner and Dr Yamakawa signed the Hera agreement, and Prof. Gunther Hasinger and Dr Hitoshi Kuninaka signed the MMX agreement for ESA and JAXA respectively.

Hera is an international planetary defence mission to carry out observations of the NASA DART mission's impact on the binary asteroid Didymos. Under this agreement, JAXA contributes to the mission by providing the thermal infrared camera and science collaboration.

MMX is a JAXA exploration mission, which plans to collect a sample from the martian moon Phobos and to bring it back to Earth. The agreement paves the way for ESA to provide JAXA with onboard communication components for the probe and assist in spacecraft tracking and control. ESA's contribution through science cooperation is also included in the agreement.

Related Links
Corporate news at ESA
Asteroid and Comet Mission News, Science and Technology

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

NASA's Psyche mission moves forward, passing key milestone
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 04, 2021
NASA's Psyche mission has passed a critical milestone that moves it a step closer to launch. After an intense review of the mission's progress in building its science instruments and engineering systems, Psyche won clearance to progress into what NASA calls Phase D of its life cycle - the final phase of operations prior to its scheduled launch in August 2022. Until now, the mission has focused on planning, designing, and building the body of the spacecraft, its solar-electric propulsion system, th ... read more