EDITORIAL INFORMATION

This is the first of two volumes dealing with the history of the European Space Agency and its predecessors, the European Space Research Organisation, and the European Launcher Development Organisation. It covers the period from the birth of ESRO and ELDO, in the early 1960s, up to 1973. In that year the decision was taken to bring ESRO and ELDO together in a new organisation (ESA) and the programmatic basis for the new agency was laid with the adoption of the so-called Second Package Deal. This arrangement, and the First Package Deal of 1971, allowed for a mandatory programme to be supplemented by optional applications programmes in various fields, as well as two major undertakings, the Ariane launcher and Spacelab, a scientific laboratory to be carried on board NASA's Space Shuttle. The detailed evolution of these programmes is not discussed here. They are taken up in Volume II, which concludes the history of ESA up to 1987. An epilogue schematically describes the reorientation in the Agency's priorities in the decade thereafter.

(Extracted from the Preface).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Foreword by Prof. Reimar Lüst.

-Foreword by Mr. Antonio Rodotà.

-Foreword by K.-E. Reuter.

-Author's Preface.

-Abbreviations and Acronyms.

-Introduction: The Beginning of the Space Age.

-1. The Pioneers: From Amaldi's "Euroluna" Vision to the Creation of COPERS.

-2. The Early Activities of the COPERS and the Setting up of ESRO.

-3. The Launch of ELDO.

-4. The Reorientation of ELDO's Programme and the First Steps Towards a Coordinated European Space Effort.

-5. Implementing ESRO's First Scientific Programme.

-6. The Rise and Fall of ESRO's First Major Scientific Project: the Large Astronomical Satellite (LAS).

-7. The COS-B Satellite: A Case Study in ESRO's Selection Procedures.

-8. ESRO's Satellite Programme in 1969-1973: The Definition of a Scientific Policy and the "First Package Deal".

-9. The Beginning of the Telecommunications Satellite Programme in ESRO.

-10. The Early Development of ESRO's Telecom Programme and the OTS Project.

-11. The Long Struggle to Adopt a Balanced European Space Programme.

-12. US-European Cooperation in Space During the 1960s.

-13. US-European Space Cooperation in the Post-Apollo Programme: Setting the Stage.

-Bibliography.

-Appendix 1: Chairmanships in ESRO/ELDO/ESA.

-Appendix 2: The History Study Reports.

-Index.