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After 11 months of successful operation onboard the ISS US laboratory Destiny, the air quality monitors ANITA (Analyzing Interferometer for Ambient Air) was brought back to Earth on STS126 (ULF2). ANITA is a technology demonstrator flight experiment for continuous air quality monitoring inside the crewed cabin of the ISS with low detection limits and high time resolution. For the first time, the dynamics of the detected trace gas concentrations could be directly resolved by ANITA and correlated to gas events in the cabin. The system is the result of a long term ESA technology development programme initiated more than seventeen years ago. The ANITA mission was a cooperative project between ESA and NASA. ESA's responsibilities were the provision of the H/W, the data acquisition and the data evaluation. NASA was responsible for the launch, accommodation and operation onboard ISS, data download and the transportation of ANITA back to the Earth.

Since 1975 ESA's TRP activities in the cryogenic domain have been steadily increasing. Before 1986 most of these activities were directed towards the development of cryogen technology. CRHESUS (CRyostat a HElium Superfluide pour Utilisation Spatiale) was a programme which helped develop superfluid helium technology within Europe. Since 1986 however a major step forward has been made in cryocooler technology, with an 80K cooler developed under TRP funding being recognised as the first viable space cryocooler. It is presently being sold by BAe (UK) as a commercial product. While keeping the basic design these cryocoolers are continuing to be developed down to lower temperatures. Coolers at 20K, 4K and 2.5K exist with 0.1K foreseen. Other cryogenic activities are discussed in the paper and the overall logic and direction of ESA's cryogenic TRP developments explained.