Enabling & Support
04/03/2026
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The upper stratosphere and mesosphere represent a critical yet insufficiently characterised region of Earth’s atmosphere. This domain governs ozone chemistry, aerosol microphysics, and radiative balance, while increasingly bearing the fingerprint of expanding space activity.
Europe has strong heritage in high altitude balloons and sounding rockets, which provide valuable but episodic access to parts of this region. However, sustained, repeatable, and controllable in-situ measurements across the upper stratosphere and into the mesosphere remain beyond current operational capability. In particular, extended-duration observations above conventional balloon ceilings and persistent mesospheric access are limited.
This campaign seeks concepts that close these gaps: advanced platforms enabling long-duration operation, controlled ascent and descent profiles, targeted sampling, and improved altitude coverage. The ambition is to establish a coherent European atmospheric access architecture to measure impact of space activity on the stratosphere and mesosphere: connecting existing assets, developing new capabilities where required, and enabling sustained in-situ presence across one of Earth’s most consequential yet least routinely observed atmospheric domains.
Send us your ideas!
Ideas will be accepted until 27 March 2026. This will be followed by a discussion phase, the evaluation of ideas and the selection of shortlisted proposals.
This Campaign is being run by the Discovery element of ESA’s Basic Activities via the Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP). You can find all the details of the timing, process and conditions here.
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