The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved a new three-year, €1.35 billion ($1.6 billion) spending plan that for the first time funds an initiative to support space defense programs across its 23 member states.
“The clear mandate for use of space applications for non-aggressive defence purposes signifies an historic change for ESA. … Non-dependence in technology is key to advancing Europe’s ambitions in space, alongside its guaranteed access to space,” the agency said in a Nov. 27 statement following the vote by its ruling Council of Ministers in Bremen, Germany.
For the first 50 years of its existence, ESA fashioned itself as purely a civil-focused space agency akin to NASA and other national space programs and disavowed any connection to European or member state defense activities. However, over the past year that position has shifted, as European governments have grown more concerned with threats to their space systems especially from Russia and about their reliance on a less-reliable United States for key military space capabilities.
The European Resilience from Space (ERS) effort initially will focus on development of dual-use technologies to underpin a proposed new network of Earth observation satellites — called the Earth Observation Governmental Service and championed by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU) — as well as new program to provide “navigation services” from satellites in low Earth orbit.
However, the ERS effort could be expanded over time to support other space security and defense capabilities, especially as ESA leaders voted to allow member states a year to decide what more they might want to put into the budget pot.
ESA is independent from the 27-member EU; not all members of ESA are members of the EU and vice versa. ESA programs are funded both by mandatory contributions by member states based on gross domestic product and voluntary contributions by national governments.
The ERS funding is only a small part of the whopping €22 billion ($27 billion) three-year budget approved by the ESA Council of Ministers. While slightly less than the €22.3 billion proposed by ESA Director Josef Aschbacher, he noted that it represents a 32 percent jump from the previous 2022 budget or 17 percent when factoring in inflation.
“This is amazing,” Aschbacher said during the post-meeting press conference Nov. 28.
Space Transportation continues to be the biggest category of ESA spending in the 2025-2027 budget, with €4.4 billion ($5.1 billion) slated for its Ariane 6 heavy-lift and Vega-C medium-lift launch vehicle programs, as well as the new European Launcher Challenge initiative aimed at creating a pool of EU-based providers of commercial launch services.
European leaders for several years have been bemoaning the dominance of the global launch market by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, pushing for greater efforts to build up the continent’s domestic industry including the use of reusable rockets to compete with SpaceX’s ubiquitous Falcon-9. Ariane 6 is built by Franco-German aerospace behemoth ArianeGroup. Vega-C is built by Italian firm Avio.
ESA in July tapped five companies — German firms Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg; Spanish firm PLD Space; MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of Ariane Group, and British firm Orbex — to compete in the European Launcher Challenge. First flight demonstrations are scheduled to take place in 2027.