Highlights 2015

2015 began and ended with two pioneering missions: IXV, the Intermediate Experimental Vehicle, proving Europe s ability to return autonomously from space, and LISA Pathfinder, which set out in December to test the technologies needed to detect gravitational waves and, with them, a new way to look at our Universe But a lot has happened in More European astronauts have visited space and more satellites are beefing up Galileo and ESA s Earth Observation programme