ESA

Discovery

The Discovery element is at the beginning of ESA’s innovation pipeline: We use it to peer, together with Academia and industry, beyond the immediate planning horizon.

ESA explores promising new ideas and concepts through its Discovery activities.

Through these activities we encourage risk taking and invest in potentially game-changing technologies and disruptive innovation. We also conceive the first coherent baselines and options for future space missions.

Being part of ESA’s Basic Activities, Discovery’s fully open and competitive approach allows ESA to identify, explore and mature the best ideas, benefitting from the open innovation approach.

The Discovery element funds research, studies and early technology development activities in all areas of space technology and research.

It is driven by novelty, focused on potentially game-changing technologies and disruptive innovation, and organised through ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP). OSIP was initially introduced for t he Discovery element to provide the lowest possible entrance barrier for new ideas to enter ESA’s innovation pipeline.

Discovery activities specifically target companies and academia which are not yet involved in space activities, and are particularly suitable for innovative SMEs.

For enquiries, please refer to the assigned contacts:

Leopold Summerer

Advanced Concepts

Discovery types of activities

THREE TYPES OF ACTIVITIES ARE IMPLEMENTED WITHIN THE DISCOVERY ELEMENT OF ESA’s BASIC ACTIVITIES

1

Co-funded research

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ESA co-funds research activities which last between six months and three years, with budgets of typically 20–90 k€. Co-funded research activities include the co-funding of PhDs and postdocs, as experience has shown that very innovative ideas are often generated by universities. These activities address fundamental scientific questions related to all types of space activities.

2

Studies

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Studies explore the general feasibility of, interest in, and options for entirely new space systems with budgets typically between 20 and 100 k€. These can serve also as a precursor to technology development activities.

3

Early Technology Projects

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The emphasis is on novel, potentially game-changing low Technology Readiness Level activities for space applications. These activities typically involve developing an early proof of concept with hardware up to prototype level with potential customer interests. Early technology development activities have budgets between 50 and 175 k€.


Latest closed studies
11.03.2023

RESMALI: Remote Sensing for Marine Litter

03.03.2023

Cellular Agriculture

02.03.2023

BLUE: Brillouin - backscatter - fluorescence LIDAR research for Underwater Exploration of marine litter

26.02.2023

Detecting water hyacinth patches as a proxy for riverine plastic transport

FOUNDING YOUR IDEAS CALLS
31.03.2023
9 ideas

Invent tomorrow's driving with NAVISP (PNT for CCAM)

The agency is calling on industry to submit their ideas to support and accelerate the transition to a more connected, automated, and sustainable transportation sector through the use of P...

12.04.2023
1 ideas

DLR-ESA Joint Announcement of Opportunity for Parabolic Flight Electro-Magnetic Levitation Experiments 2023 (TEMPUS)

The objective of this call for proposals is the selection of an appropriate number of samples and experiment cycles for the 2023 TEMPUS experiment on the 41st DLR parabolic flight campaig...

30.04.2023
1 ideas

Incubed for Cultural and Natural Heritage

The Incubed for Cultural and Natural Heritage Thematic Call , part of the InCubed co-funded programme, focuses on developing innovative and commercially successful products and services u...

Open Space Innovation Platform

To open the innovation pipeline to new actors and enlarge the space sector to fully benefit from opportunities of new space environment, in 2019 ESA created a platform to fund new ideas: OSIP. 

THE NEBULA 

LIBRARY

ESA's new knowledge bank for Research and Technology studies - the NEBULA library provides access to results of Discovery, Preparation and Technology Development activities. It serves as a technical repository and open library.