It is estimated that a budget of €8 billion will be needed for the future of the European Earth observation programme Copernicus, said Simonetta Cheli, Head of the Coordination Office, Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes at the European Space Agency (ESA) headquarters when contacted by EUROPE on Friday 10 November.
These are only initial figures, which are absolutely not definitive and which will be up for debate among the ESA member states and the European Union, Cheli emphasised, pointing to the uncertainty surrounding the negotiations on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU and the new multiannual financial framework. It is worth noting, however, that this budget is €1 billion higher than what is being sought by the European space industry, whose calls, set out in a letter to Commission Vice-President for the Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič, were reported by EUROPE (see EUROPE 11882).
The Agency sees it as crucial, Cheli said, to ensure a budget that guarantees the continuity of the programme and also allows for new ventures addressing users’ needs. Europe is planning, inter alia, to develop a new project to monitor and measure CO2 emissions with a new dedicated Sentinel satellite by 2025-2026. The ESA would also like to maintain the current agreement with the European Union on the allocation of the programme’s overall budget with around 25% of going principally to research and development.
At the informal ESA-EU ministerial meeting in Tallinn on Tuesday, there was political consensus that the programme should continue, a diplomatic source told us (see EUROPE 11900). In the course of the discussions, ESA Director General Jan Wörner is said to have emphasised the need, inter alia, to ensure continuation of the space component of the programme, with the inclusion of long-term data storage. The Copernicus programme generates huge quantities of data (currently 36 petabytes) and it is from these data that member states hope to benefit.
The Copernicus budget will be discussed at the next meeting of the ESA Programme Board for Earth Observation next week. The Agency’s definitive position will be made known at the ministerial meeting at the end of 2019. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)