2 Euro Proof

The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was established in the 1960s, when several Western European states pooled their scientific and financial resources for space exploration. At that time, individual European countries could scarcely compete with the major space programmes of the United States and the Soviet Union. ESRO therefore focused on the scientific exploration of space, while the separate organisation ELDO worked on European launch vehicles. Belgium was one of ESRO’s member states.

ESRO 2B was part of an early programme of scientific small satellites. Its predecessor, ESRO 2A, was lost in an unsuccessful launch. The success of the second version therefore demonstrated that the still young organisation could carry out a joint satellite project. The satellite was not launched with a European rocket, but with an American Scout launch vehicle from Vandenberg in California. This also illustrates that, at that time, Europe’s space programme was still heavily dependent on cooperation with the United States for launches.

The radiation phenomena studied were a relatively new field of research at the time. Earth’s radiation belts had only been discovered at the beginning of the space age. Measurements of energetic particles and radiation originating from the Sun helped improve understanding of the interactions between the Sun, Earth’s magnetic field and near-Earth space. Such findings were relevant not only to basic research, but also to the protection of spacecraft, measuring instruments and, later, crewed missions.

In 1975, ESRO and ELDO were merged into the newly established European Space Agency (Europäische Weltraumorganisation, ESA). Today’s ESA is therefore institutionally rooted in that early cooperation. The fiftieth anniversary gave Belgium an occasion to commemorate its participation in the beginnings of coordinated European space exploration. The subject connects Belgian science policy with the development of joint European research structures.