The
European Space Research Organisation (
ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10
European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in
space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a previously existing international scientific institution,
CERN. The ESRO convention, the organisations founding document outlines it as an entity exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. This was the case for most of its lifetime but in the final years before the formation of ESA, the
European Space Agency, ESRO began a programme in the field of telecommunications. Consequently, ESA is not a mainly
pure science focused entity but concentrates on telecommunications, earth observation and other application motivated activities. ESRO was merged with
ELDO in 1975 to form the
European Space Agency.