PARIS - On the occasion of Yuri’s Night, Friday, 12 April 2019 at 19.00, the ‘Spacebrains’ foundation has directed Artcurial to sell a set of 16 lots related to the European space adventure, gathered by the European Space Agency (ESA), with most items having flown on space missions. The sale is organised at Artcurial auction house in Paris. The countdown has begun ! This is an unusual way to celebrate the 58th anniversary of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 mission, the first flight of a human in space, because this will be a new opportunity to acquire items with the heritage of international space missions. SPACEBRAINS is a new initiative supported by ESA, a non-profit association created in August 2018 with a new approach, aiming to be the beacon that monetises such wealth to offer a unique opportunity for daring ideas that link space to disruptive technologies.

For this first auction, 16 lots of a wide range of items are presented, each unique and accessible only in the context of this sale: be it a space stamp franked on board the Mir space station, flown space patches, one of Ariane 5’s booster bolts recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, the full scale model of Cupola (the European-built panorama window module installed on the International space station), one of the five flown OMEGA Speedmaster X33 Skywalker watches, or your own official manufacturer’s Exomars spacecraft model. The auction will be preceded by a public exhibition from 30 March to 9 April at Artcurial.