The Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), Josef Aschbacher, confirmed a budget of €6 billion for the European constellation project for secure connectivity at a press briefing on Tuesday 18 January.
Responding to EUROPE, the Director General explained that it was a “2+2+2” funding model. He indicated that €2 billion would come from the public sector. “The ESA is preparing a proposal to provide part of the public portion,” he said, indicating that the current “working hypothesis” is around €750 million.
“But, of course, everything has to be negotiated with our Member States and with the Commission, so this is all in progress”, he added. Continuing, Élodie Viau, head of the ESA’s Telecommunications Directorate, confirmed that it was indeed necessary to wait for the mandate of the Member States at the ESA ministerial meeting in November 2022 before committing to the project in 2023.
The “2+2+2” approach corresponded to €2 billion from Member States, €2 billion from public-private partnerships, and €2 billion from the EU. This will not be easy for the EU, given that this €2 billion will have to be found without reopening the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
To do this, the European Commission could take funds away from programmes like GovSatCom, the Digital Europe programme, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and possibly the Defence Fund (see EUROPE 12830/8), we were told.
Copernicus, new missions to be staggered?
During his speech, while highlighting the success of the European Earth observation programme Copernicus, the Director General attested to the good progress of the discussions between the ESA and the European Commission, Member States and industry to find a solution to the €750 million shortfall (see EUROPE 12845/5).
“We have discussed several options quite intensively with our Member States and the Commission”, he confirmed to EUROPE, to keep “the integrity of the programme”, especially for the six future missions.
There was a consensus to not “sacrifice” any of the future missions, he said. “There are a number of options to allow us to buy time”, he continued, explaining that he wanted to postpone the decision until 2024, the date set for the Critical Design Review (CDR) of the satellites.
Technical incident
In addition, the Director General reported on a major failure on the Copernicus programme’s Sentinel 1B satellite, which has not been functional since 23 December 2021. “We are not yet fully aware of the exact nature of the problem”, he acknowledged, adding that the incident was “strange”. The system’s power supply and the redundant system failed at the same time. “We have tried to recover the satellite several times”, without success, he concluded.
The consequent loss of data would be compensated by the purchase of commercial data, particularly from Canada, he announced. Responding to EUROPE, he said an investigation was being carried out to determine whether the design of the future Sentinel 1C satellite needed to be reworked. Fortunately, the Sentinel 1A satellite would still be fully operational, although it has exceeded its life expectancy.
Space Summit and manned flights
During his speech, the Director General spoke about the programme of the Space Summit (see EUROPE 12817/24), which will be held in Toulouse on 16 February. He said that the day would be split into two, with an ESA ministerial meeting in the morning and an EU Competitiveness meeting in the afternoon. French President Emmanuel Macron will give a closing speech at the end of the day.
In this context, he announced that the working lunch will be devoted, on the one hand, to the role of the space sector in combating climate change and, on the other hand, to the development of a European manned programme.
Referring to the five flagship programmes supported under the Matosinhos Manifesto (see EUROPE 12837/28), Mr Aschbacher made a renewed plea for the development of a European manned spaceflight programme, pointing out that the United States, China, Russia and soon India all have such programmes while Europe is lagging behind.
“Why? Because we don't have enough money. It’s very simple!”, he said, adding that the ESA’s budget was about 7% of the budget of the US space agency NASA.
To see the DG’s PDF presentation: https://bit.ly/3fAUKjI (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)