04/05/2026 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 4 May, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the successful launch the previous day of 13 European satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. “Thirteen European satellites on the same rideshare launcher have successfully reached orbit, bringing capabilities to Italian and Greek monitoring programmes as well as CubeSats that will test satellite connectivity”, announced ESA in a press release. Seven of its satellites have joined the Hawk for Earth Observation (HEO) constellation for Italy’s IRIDE Earth observation programme, four have been launched for Greece’s forest fire detection and monitoring system, and two CubeSats have been launched, also for Greece, as part of the Hellenic Space Dawn mission. They will test satellite links and optical data transmission capabilities in space. (CG)