On 24 January, teachers and students from Ireland, Romania and Portugal will be connected by video connection with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, currently living and working on the International Space Station. For livestream on the day, follow here:

The UK's Queen Mary, University of London - School of Physics just announced their #SSFX Space Sound Effects film competition, inviting filmmakers to use sounds from space. Wonder if they'll use some of ours? (see https://soundcloud.com/esa) ;-)

Our second Sentinel-2 satellite is set for launch on 7 March. Discover more about Sentinel-2B and its 'colour vision' for #Copernicus at http://www.esa.int/…/Observing_the_Ea…/Copernicus/Sentinel-2

Update on investigations into anomalies noted in the atomic clocks serving Europe’s #Galileo satellites:

ESA hopes to send the probe to a gravitationally stable point in space known as Lagrange point 5 (L5) by around 2023, where it would provide a unique, side-on view of streams of charged particles heading towards Earth. The strongest of such eruptions, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), can knock out navigation and communications satellites, interfere with navigation systems and disrupt power grids.

Are you passionate about our planet, how satellites help us understand its functions and sharing via social media? Then ESA’s next SocialSpace event is for you! More at http://www.esa.int/sentinel2go

Coming soon: More information on a new member of the European Astronaut Corps to be revealed at a press conference on 16 February. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit…/Human_Spaceflight/Astronauts

Technology image of the week: a robotic arm grappling a derelict satellite, attached to e.Deorbit, planned to be the world's first space debris removal mission:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimag…/…/01/e.Deorbit_s_robotic_arm

Find out about Europe’s versatile small #telecom satellite platform...

What is #SmallGEO? Find out more in today's #media briefing - watch live from 11:30 CET. Questions? Tweet with #askSmallGEO

Crew portrait for Expedition 52: NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, astronaut Randy Bresnik and cosmonaut Sergei Ryazansky. Paolo, Randy and Sergei are planned to launch on Soyuz MS-05 in May.

Things are progressing well at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana where the Sentinel-2B satellite is being prepared for liftoff on 7 March at 02:49 CET (6 March 22:49 local time). Read more at the Sentinel blog, see http://blogs.esa.int/eolaunches/category/Sentinel-2/

Brad Parkinson, hailed as the father of GPS, visited ESA’s ESTEC technical heart last week to meet the team behind Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system.