On Friday 2 December, the 22 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) adopted a €10.3 billion budget that should help guarantee the continuity of the European flagship programmes such as Copernicus and Galileo, as well as the Govsatcom development programme.
The final budget decided on is obviously slightly below the €11 billion initially requested by the ESA (see EUROPE 11681) but this is not in any way bad news for Michel Praet, who heads the ESA in Brussels. He explained to us that, “It is always best to request more but to get less rather than request less when the states can give more”. The different budgets decided on for the programmes in fact correspond more or less to what the ESA expected, with the exception of the Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM), which has been scrapped.
Around €1.2 billion has been allocated for terrestrial observation that should allow for all the operations planned to be maintained in the Copernicus programme and for which the ESA is planning to make into the “first environmental information source based on space data”. In a ministerial meeting resolution, member states are also planning to develop European observation capacity as part of the Copernicus agreement between the ESA and EU. The flagging up of the different programmes covered by this budget has not yet been decided on.
The ESA has managed to secure €69 billion for the navigation budget but it was hoping for €100 million. This amount is expected to be sufficient for pursuing the Galileo programme objectives, one of the “two best global navigation satellite system (GNSS)” in the world, with the other system being the US GPS. The communication precursor programme, “Govsatcom precursor” mentioned in the European Commission space strategy (see EUROPE 11655) is also expected to be maintained. In this case, the project would be carried out by the ESA, Commission, European Defense Agency and the European External Action Service. Finally, the €1.6 billion envelope for the launchers will in the long term help towards developing Ariane 6 and Vega C, as well as the development of the reusable liquid/methane oxygen engine, according to the director for launchers, Daniel Neuenschwander, quoted by Space News.
Some of the key decisions that need highlighting include the fact that member states have given the go-ahead to continuing the ExoMars programme, which has so far only had a marginal success. Participation in the International Space Station programme until 2024 has also been guaranteed.
Germany supports ISS, Italy supports ExoMars, France backs the launchers and United Kingdom sets ambush
The United Kingdom is now heading toward Brexit and the impact of this on the space sector is provoking both a number of fears and hopes (see EUROPE 11663), although it is expected that space activities will be consolidated and the UK government has announced €1.4 billion for the ESA for the next five years. Germany has given its support to continue the cooperation within the ISS, as was explained by the German Secretary of State for Space, Brigitte Zypries.
The Italians have given their support to the Exomars programme and the French have come out in support for the launchers.
Contrary to the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework, the ESA budget does not correspond to a permanent cycle but changes according to the different programmes. The Commission has therefore retained a proposal from the ESA and in 2017 will present a joint administrative and financial framework for a space programme (see EUROPE 11678). The EU and ESA signed a joint declaration at the end of October in favour of increased cooperation in the space domain (see EUROPE 11647). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)