Brussels, 19/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 April, the Commission launched a public consultation to run until 12 July on the future space strategy for Europe, to be adopted in October of this year, as well as a consultation solely for businesses which use data from the Copernicus programme.
The first consultation consists of 36 questions, most of them closed questions or multiple choice, on the general objectives of the space strategy, competitiveness, security and international cooperation, as well as on the future of the key European base programmes, Copernicus, the Earth observation programme, and Galileo, the European satellite navigation system, which aims to compete with the American GPS system.
As regards Copernicus, the Commission is mainly hoping to gather information on the visibility and use made of the data collected, the technical challenges still to be overcome, access to data, innovations which would help to boost demand and innovation, and the internationalisation of the observation programme.
“With the questions it is asking today, we can see where the Commission hopes to take us: I welcome this political commitment”, commented French member of the European Parliament and deputy chair of the “Sky and Space” intergroup, Franck Proust (EPP). “We need to guarantee the independence of our access to space, which is today under threat from increasingly cutthroat competition”, he added.
The Commission's stated aim is to confront the emergence of the private sector in the space sector, which is increasingly calling the position of the European industry into question. Readers may recall that two American companies specialising in Aeronautics, SpaceX (which is owned by the co-founder of PayPal and of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk) and Blue Origin (owned by the founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos), recently made ground-breaking successes in the field of reusable launchers, which could very soon reduce costs by a factor of between 16 and 15, according to several studies.
In December of last year, the Commission adopted a roadmap on its action and the future of the European space policy, on the basis of article 189 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), which states that “the Union shall draw up a European space policy (and) may promote joint initiatives, support research and technological development and coordinate the efforts needed for the exploration and exploitation of space”.
Over the period 2014-2020, nearly €12 billion has been earmarked for the programmes Galileo (Regulation 1285/2013) and Copernicus (Regulation 377/2014), and to the research programme Horizon 2020. To put this sum into perspective, however, the North American Space Agency, NASA, has a budget of €18.5 billion for the year 2016 alone. Both space programmes are expected to undergo a mid-term review next year and the results will then be put to use in the framework of the revision of the multi-annual financial framework.
The Industry Ministers and their colleagues with responsibility for space policy will tackle this issue on 26 May, particularly regarding the exploitation of the space data. For its part, the Dutch Presidency will be holding the 'European Space Solutions' conference in The Hague from 27 May to 5 June, to discuss space solutions in relation to the two European programmes. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)