A great deal has been happening in the space world, particularly in the European context, since I last addressed the Bulletin's readers. The last year has been a very busy and important one for ESA missions, especially within the Scientific Programme. We have launched SMART-1, which went into orbit around the Moon on 15 November, we are already orbiting Mars with Mars Express, we have launched Rosetta towards the comet, and the Huygens Probe will be landing on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in mid-January. We have sent two European astronauts for stays onboard the International Space Station (ISS) during the year. We have also been preparing the Ariane-5 ECA launcher for a new qualification flight in January 2005.
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