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# European Space Agency

## ESA, Agence spatiale européenne, Europäische Weltraumorganisation

Last modified: 2026-08-29 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: european space agency | letter: e (blue) | esa |
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Image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 June 2026

- Overview
- Flag of the ESA
- Former flags of ESA
  - Older flag of ESA

See also:

- International Organizations
- European organizations and movements

## Overview

The European Space Agency (ESA) (French: Agence spatiale européenne - ASE; German: Europäische Weltraumorganisation) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, with 20 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France. ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station programme, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles.
After World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work in the United States. Although the 1950s boom made it possible for Western European countries to invest in research and specifically in space related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two main superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Edoardo Amaldi and Pierre Auger, two prominent members of the Western European scientific community at that time, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency. The meeting was attended by scientific representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey (UK).
The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned with developing a launch system ELDO (European Launch Development Organization) and the precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organisation). The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962. From 1968 to 1972, ESRO carried out numerous successful projects. Seven research satellites were brought into orbit, all by US launch systems. Ariane did not exist at that time.
ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, when ESRO was merged with ELDO. ESA has 10 founding member states:
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, when the convention came into force. During this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. The other members which later joined are: Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania.
Currently the only associated member of ESA is Canada and it is also the only non-European country to do so (Australia was part of the ELDO program but withdrew when it was over). Previously associated members were Austria, Norway and Finland, all of which later joined ESA as full members.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency

After the decision of the ESA Council of 21/22 March 2001, the procedure for accession of the European states was ammended. The current applicants are:
Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.
The political perspective of the European Union (EU) is to make ESA an agency of the EU by 2014, although this date may not be met. The EU is already the largest single donor to ESA's budget and non-ESA EU states are observers at ESA.
The only EU member states that have not signed an ESA Cooperation Agreement are Bulgaria and Croatia. Bulgaria however, has announced its intention to participate in the activities of ESA and is in the process of negotiations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Space_Agency

For additional information go to: ESA (official website)

Esteban Rivera, 17 February 2014

## The Flag

Example of real flag on this picture, from today's Artemis III crew announcement.
According to ESA branding guide, shade of blue is hex 003247 / PMS 2189C.

Dave Fowler, 10 June 2026

From ESA branding guide: there is a photo of an ESA flag hoisted and fluttering, on p.35: The photo is too tightly framed (or cropped) to ascertain the total ratio and the relative size and position of the logo on it; seems
to be the same flag as on the photo sent by Dave, but shown in full — with the deplorable spelled-out name under the logo.
Otherwise this brand book has no content whatsoever about the specs of the flag, and the word "flag" occurs only once, in the description of the ESA agency patch.
Concerning the shade of blue: "hex 003247", "Hex" here meaning "RGB", this is indeed very dark teal, with the| blue component only 30% higher than the green one.
Unsurprisingly, although the style book (p.42) confirms and expands these values («CMYK 100 30 20 75 »|« RGB 0 50 71 »|« HEX 003247 »|« PMS 2189C »|« RAL 5008»), the book illustrations themselves, in this PDF «optimized for fast web view», use instead RGB:002E46 (on p.40) and also RGB:003044 (on p.41).

António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 June 2026

## Former flags

Image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 June 2026
after flag specifications from Zoltán Horváth

The [former] flag showed the new logo on a horizontal blue flag (the logo in the flag has inverted colors, that is: the letters in white) as seen here (esa official website) and here (Bethbeck's Blog)

Esteban Rivera, 17 February 2014

According to this article in the ESA website, the “thumbprint” was removed at an unspecified date.
It is possible to ascertain the changeover dates by looking up photos of ESA astronauts on duty — both the transition from the “thumbprint” disc to the current solid one and from the logo-only flag reported by Viktor Lomantsov to the logo+lettering reported by Zoltán Horváth.

Photo of Maurizio Cheli with the big logo flag, taken apparently in 1996, at the start of the STS-75 mission, shows the thumbprint logo sourced on Wikipedia to [www.esa.int/esalogo] as of 2017. Checking the changes of this page in Archive.ORG, we get to this page (16 March 2020) as the latest record of the thumbprint logo, replaced by the new one at this page (04 April 2020), indicating that the change occurred between mid March and early April of 2020.
The official ESA website, prior to 2020.04, indicated CMYK:100-85-5-35, which is bluer and lighter than current spec of 100-30-20-75. Although no other colorimentric value was offered, the digital images available
online used RGB:0E2D6D with the same exact value used in the site layout.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 June 2026

> ### Older flag of ESA

Iimage by Victor Lomantsov, 20 June 2026