SPACE SUMMIT 2023
What’s happening?
The Space Summit and the EU Space Week 2023 in Seville were interesting events bringing together around 2000 participants to discuss and celebrate space achievements.
At the European Space Agency level, ministers have endorsed Europe's sustainable and competitive space ambitions, making crucial decisions that shape the future of space exploration and technology.
Why this is important?
The decisions made in Seville mark a commitment to advancing Europe's position in space exploration, emphasizing sustainability and competitiveness.
We may have reached in Seville a pivotal point in terms of the balance between the public and private sector involvement in European space-related activities, with increasingly private sector involvement in the future, under a more competitive and risk-taking approach.
Also, a new economy is developing in low Earth orbit and possibly around the Moon that will transform space exploration.
Finally, ESA will need to evolve from that of a launch system procuring entity towards a new role as “Anchor Customer”, procuring commercial services with long term commitments, building up trust for private investment.
What's in it for you?
In Seville, according to the adopted ESA resolution and related publicly available documents, the following decisions were taken:
- to support Ariane 6 with a maximum public funding of € 340 million, but by asking related industries to reduce their costs; as a result one should expect that Ariane 6 (and Vega-C launchers) will soon guarantee European access to space, but there will be no Ariane 7 and the successors remain unclear
- to begin phase 1 of a commercial cargo return vehicle for the ISS that could evolve into a crewed capsule and eventually serve other destinations
- to initiate a broader approach than relying exclusively on the CSG in Guyana to access to space to include other spaceports
- to accelerate the use of space for a green future via notably Earth observation data, cloud computing and cutting-edge analytics to help to navigate the transition to carbon neutrality.
In the meantime, one should expect more emphasis on an environmentally conscious and ethical approach to space exploration. It is unclear whether there will be additional public funding.
Next steps
The next steps involve translating these decisions into action, including at ESA levels.
This will require, in particular:
- demonstrating ESA’s role as the agency at the heart of Europe’s space ambitions
- finding the balanced blend of public and private sector participation
- ensuring and coordinating the European demand for space services
- unlocking new commercial potential, by revisiting partnership models and procurement methods.
There will be an important Council meeting at Ministerial level in 2025 and ESA Director will need to propose an “ESA 2040” strategy to serve as a foundation for the 2025 meeting.