European Space Agency |Primary spaceport||Guiana Space Centre|
|Budget||€4.28 billion / £3.64 billion / US$5.51 billion
(2013)1| |Official language(s)||English, French and German2| The
European Space Agency (ESA) (French: l'Agence spatiale
européenne - ASE; German: Europäische Weltraumorganisation) is
an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration
of space, currently with 20 member states. Established in 1975
and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of more than
2,000 with an annual budget of about €4.28 billion / US$5.51
billion (2013).1 ESA's space flight program includes human
spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the
International Space Station program, 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. The main
European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through