On Thursday 19 October, at the close of the ESA Council, the Director General of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said that the European Union needed to be ambitious when it came to space exploration, which will be one of the topics at the Space Summit in Seville on 6 and 7 November.
Recalling that India wanted to establish a space station by 2025 and put a man on the moon by 2040, and China by 2030, Mr Aschbacher explained that “the EU needed to be ambitious and prepare a programme for exploration”. He hoped that the summit would agree on political guidelines on how the EU should proceed with exploration. The Director General said that budgetary decisions would be made in 2025, after which it would be possible to define the content and steps to get there. He added that there was no date for a European exploration of the Moon.
The Seville Summit will also be an opportunity to discuss climate and sustainability issues, as well as access to space. In particular, it should provide an opportunity to review progress on Ariane 6.
On Thursday 19 October, the ESA pointed out that two major tests had already been carried out on the way to Ariane 6’s maiden flight. Following the postponement of a long-duration firing test initially scheduled for 3 October in Kourou, the next combined test – a launch rehearsal with ignition of the main stage – is due to take place at the end of October. This will be followed at the end of November by a long-duration firing of the main stage using the Vulcain 2.1 engine.
Normally, these two tests would have taken place in reverse order, but the time required to resolve an anomaly detected in a system needed to control Vulcain’s thrust meant that the schedule had to be adjusted. The test firing of the upper stage is scheduled for December 2023.
Adapting the test sequence will keep Ariane 6 development on track for a 2024 launch, according to the ESA, which believes it will be able to give a more precise date for the first launch after the October and November tests.
In addition, ESA’s Director General revealed that the agreement reached with the UK for its participation in Copernicus had largely made up for the funding shortfall caused by Brexit (see EUROPE 13245/4). “This agreement was really necessary to close the 721 million funding gap. It won’t make up the entire deficit, but a very large part of it”, explained Mr Aschbacher. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)