(Nov 26): Europe’s equivalent of Nasa is seeking €22 billion from its member states for the next three years, a 36% increase from its previous budget, as nations expand their military presence in space.
At the triannual conference beginning Wednesday in Bremen, Germany, the European Space Agency will submit a €1.35 billion proposal for a new program to strengthen and synchronise the continent’s defence capabilities in space. It’s the first time that ESA, a civilian organisation founded in 1975 that has steered clear of military projects, is pushing into the sector.
As Europe commits to increased defence spending in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and pressure from US President Donald Trump, ESA director general Josef Aschbacher has proposed a programme called European Resilience from Space for member states to share national space assets.
“What’s changing is the funding source,” Aschbacher said in an interview. “The funding of space activities will, in the future, increasingly also come from the defence ministries while in the past, in Europe at least, it was mostly from civilian ministries.”
The ERS will leverage projects such as Iris2 — the European Union’s proposed alternative to Starlink, the low-Earth orbit satellite communications network owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX — as well as Galileo, Europe’s navigation satellite system similar to the US-run Global Positioning System. The target users are the defence community, police forces and civil protection agencies.
Getting larger countries to share their sovereign space assets won’t be an easy task. Aschbacher said he’s had discussions to explain how member states can benefit from the programme and what the “rules of engagement” are.
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“For Europe, it’s really important that we do strengthen our independence and our autonomy,” he said. “This is certainly at the core of my proposal to the ministers.”
The proposal will be voted on by space chiefs from the UK, France, Italy and elsewhere when they gather at the ESA ministerial council.
After calls from member states to propose the ERS programme, Aschbacher has met with defence ministers across Europe to lobby them to commit funding for the new framework.
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The ESA boss’s push comes as North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies commit to increasing their defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035 as geopolitical tensions heighten and security threats increase.
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