ESA was established in 1975, taking much of its administrative structure from ESRO with a few elements from ELDO.

The two main organs were specified in articles X-XII of the ESA Convention: the Council, consisting of representatives from Member States, and the Director General with the support of staff, responsible for carrying out the decisions of Council.

Several Committees, Programme Boards and Working Groups assist the Council, while the internal administration of ESA is managed by the Director General who delegates activities to different Directorates and Working Groups.

Major reorganisations have occurred throughout the years, however the main subordinate bodies have remained the same.

Originally, ESA Headquarters in Paris stored the files arranged by topics and according to a related filing system. The European Centre for Space Records (ECSR, ESRIN) was created in 2002 and the archives from ESA Headquarters were transferred there in 2017. ECSR became the central archive for all of ESA in 2018.
A part of the ESA fonds was deposited at the HAEU under the terms of a deposit contract signed on 12 May 1989. To continue and deepen the fruitful archival cooperation, and to foster digital access to the historical archives of ESA, a Letter of Intent was signed on 2 May 2019 during an event at Villa Salviati.
As the Parties agreed to revise and amend the deposit contract of 1989 with a focus on digital access, data protection and information security, the revised and amended contract was signed by ESA and EUI in December 2020.

ESA Headquarters; ESTEC; ESRIN; ESOC

The ESA fonds contains the administrative papers of Council and its subordinate bodies, Programme Boards and Working Groups. These mainly consist of official papers from and meetings, as well as reports and similar files relating to the various issues and projects discussed.

The fonds also contains the administrative papers of the Director General and his staff, including the various directorates, offices and centres like ESTEC, ESRIN and ESOC.

Since 1995 onwards, a work of description and arrangement by series made by ESA runs before all transfers.

Official documents (internally referred to as "Blue papers") created for the Council and its subordinate bodies, are deposited annually by ESA and opened after 15 years. Other archival materials from ESA are deposited semiregularly.

"Blue papers" are sequentially arranged. Other files are arranged in series according to their administrative origin.

The HAEU may not own the rights on the photographs present in this fonds. Copyright or other restrictions applying to the material should be assessed by the user. Any copyright violations resulting from the use of documents held at the Historical Archives are solely the user’s responsibility. More about copyright

English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

Photograph, Textual

Villa Il Poggiolo, third room: ESA-25903 - ESA-26107; ESA-26121 - ESA-26140; ESA-26156 - ESA-26188; ESA-26217 - ESA-26381

Villa Il Poggiolo, mobile shelf NE FC QM AA (close to the middle room): ESA-11007 - ESA-11011; ESA-26108 - ESA-26140; ESA-26189 - ESA-26216

Villa Salviati, deposit 9

ESA Historical Publications

European Centre for Space Records
The European Centre for Space Records (ECSR) was established in 2002 as a dedicated location to host technical documentation related to ESA projects and missions.
The archives include collections such as Envisat, Rosetta, Artemis, ISO, MSG, Cluster, ERS, SOHO and XMM, among many more. From 2017, with the move of the HQ Archives to the ECSR, it became not only the centre for all ESA projects and missions, but also for material on all administrative as, among others, legal affairs and decision-making processes. The centre also hosts all signed original contracts and has a substantial collection of negatives and photographs as well as a large collection of microfiche and some artefacts.