In a report published on Monday, 13 July, the European Space Agency (ESA) revealed that European space budgets rose 12% in 2025 compared to 2024 to hit €13.5 billion (0.06% of GDP), thus recording double-digit growth for the first time in five years.
“The growth was primarily driven by increased national defence budgets, largely led by Germany,” ESA explains in its report. The share of the civil space budget in Europe is still easily in the majority—estimated to be 84% in 2025.
Europe’s share represented 11% of the global space budget in 2025 (58% for the United States and 15% for China). At the global level, space spending has fallen 3% in one year, reaching €119 billion—53% of which was related to defence. This decrease is explained by changes to the US defence budget and stagnant funding for NASA.
Focused on spacecraft manufacturing and launch services, the upstream market is valued at €75 billion. Institutional demand (80% of this share) is now dominated by the defence sector.
In 2025, [a total of] 324 launches were carried out (+25%), including 122 self-provisioned launches for Starlink, and 4,556 satellites were launched (+58%), including 219 satellites for customers from the defence sector. Europe conducted eight launches in 2025, compared to its three launches in 2024. ESA estimates the number of active satellites in orbit at the end of 2025 to be nearly 15,000, including 9,300 Starlink satellites.
The downstream market, valued at approximately €490 billion in 2025, is essentially commercial. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) represent 77% of the market share—ahead of satellite communications (Satcom) (22%) and Earth observation (1%).
Europe represents 19% of global demand for downstream products and services.
Moreover, private investment in the space sector jumped 60% at the global level, being driven by a 177% increase in activity in the United States. During the same period, European space companies raised €1.4 billion in private investments: this is an 8% decrease compared to 2024 but nevertheless represents the second-best annual result ever recorded, according to ESA.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/mvh
Civil security and resilience. On Monday, ESA and Poland also announced that a new ESA centre dedicated to civil security and resilience would be established in Warsaw.
This centre will contribute to developing European capabilities in these strategic areas in an efficient and coordinated manner.
Preparations are underway to launch pre-operational activities as soon as 2027—paving the way for the centre’s gradual development and future operations. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)