Brussels, 15/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - Re-useable launchers are not the only possibility for the future of launchers, according to European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Jan Wörner, speaking in Paris on Friday 15 January at the annual press conference which takes stock of the previous year and sets out the programme for the year to come.
“Look around you at bottles, for example. There are disposable bottles and returnable bottles. There's a market for both”, Wörner said. He spoke at length on the future of launchers, an issue of the greatest importance to the Commission, too (see EUROPE 11466), in the wake of the successes recorded by the American industry in this area in recent months. The ESA is currently investigating the possibility of developing re-useable launchers of re-useable components, he said briefly.
Nevertheless, in Wörner's view there is not just one solution applicable to all situations. The specific needs of the European Union have to be considered and taken into account. These, he pointed out, were decided by the member states in July 2014, as part of the development of the Ariane VI programme and the small-class Vega launcher. On this point, Wörner said that ministers had opted for a “Lego-style” or modular approach. This will allow incremental assembly of the various components of the launcher and should result in a halving of the costs of the launch of Ariane VI, he said - “a huge saving”, he affirmed.
He also spoke in detail about two further issues dear to his heart: building a village on the moon and the cost of space policy. The moon village “is not to build some small houses over there and then to have a city hall and a church and whatever”, he said. In his view, it is rather a single international cooperation area, serving the public and private sectors. Such a village could be used as a staging base for space conquest or below-surface mining, he said as examples. He warned that “this is certainly not something for the near future but for ten years' time” before adding that, “ten years in space terms is just like tomorrow”.
The ESA programme for 2016 is a busy one. Among the major events are: - the launch in January of the first EDRS-A European data relay satellite system payload, “which will considerably speed up data transmission and mean that services can be provided in virtually real time worldwide” and of the Sentinel 3A satellite within the framework of the Copernicus programme (followed by Sentinel 5p in June); - the launch in March of the ExoMars probe, comprising the orbiter for detecting gas in trace amounts (TGO), which will try to determine the biological or geological origin of important gases in trace amounts present on Mars, and the entry, descent and landing demonstration module (EDM); - the launch of four Galileo satellites in October using, for the first time, an Ariane V launcher; - activation in the last quarter of SmallGEO, a geostationary platform allowing the development of European telecoms services; - and a ministerial conference in December on the future of European space policy.
In his closing remarks, Wörner sought to scotch the widely held belief that “space is expensive”. “Space is not expensive. It costs less than 10 litres of petrol per citizen per year. (Satellite) navigation cost less than a beer per citizen per year. Space flights represent the cost of a Paris métro ticket per citizen per year”, he said by way of illustration. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)