Last modified: 2026-09-05 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: european space agency | letter: e (blue) | esa |
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![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa.gif)
Image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 June 2026
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
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
Variant without text line
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa4.gif)
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa1a.jpg)
Image (left) by António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 June 2026
(right), image located by Dave Fowler and António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 June 2026
On x.com, image illustrating a tweet posted by
@XploraSpace on 2026.06.22 16:58. The same location with this same ESA
flag also filmed here (youtube.com) and on screen here (lindependant.fr)
Notice how so many factors influence color perception and rendering
that, while always blue, slight changes such as CMYK:100-85-5-35 to
CMYK:100-30-20-75 as ESA did in 2020 may be unnoticeable in practice.
The image us the same as the official flag shown on p.35 of the ESA brand book but lacking the lower text line reading «European Space Agency», with the thus simplified logo centered on the flag area.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 June 2026
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa2.gif)
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa3.gif)
Images by António Martins-Tuválkin, 20 and 22 June 2026
(left) after flag specifications from Zoltán Horváth and logo at the pre-2020 ESA website
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
A photo taken at the Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow, Russia in 2021,
displaying a variant of the second ESA flag with the logo only, can be
found here (dreamstime.com).
Whether this flag was really used or is just an erroneous version, is
hard to tell, although it is hard to believe that such an error would
be made by such an institution. (The accompanying text is certainly
erroneous, though, for not all the countries whose flags are displayed
are "participating in the ESA space programs" - more likely, they
represent all the countries which have participated in any space
programs.)
Another flag-like use of the logo without the inscription was at the International Space Station on 2019-12-11, when the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano connected to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP25) which took place in Madrid, Spain. The photos from the event can be found here and here (gettyimages.in).
Tomislav Todorović, 20 June 2026
Older flag of ESA
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esa1.gif)
Iimage by Victor Lomantsov, 20 June 2026
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esap1.jpg)
![[Flag of ESA]](../images/e/eu-esap2.jpg)
Images by David Fowler, 20 June 2026 - click to enlarge
Patches from my personal collection:
The first generation 1983 version had 11 flags (no photo available).
David Fowler, 20 June 2026
