The European Space Agency (ESA) has, until now, attempted to return to Europe’s national governments contracts that were equal in value to their payments into ESA. ESA is introducing a new structure called ‘Fair Return’ which will allow a business (or consortium) that wins an ESA contract to choose how the contract’s value is spent. […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has for a couple of years been talking about alternative launch contractors. It has now fleshed out its plans. It is commissioning a study to detail the potential development of a reusable rocket capable of delivering 60 tonnes to low Earth orbit. A tender document for open competition published on […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has always worked on the basis that it would reward contributing nations with contracts that were more or less equal to their investments into ESA. There are 22 member states in ESA including the UK. This return on investment is dubbed by ESA as its “geographic return”. A meeting of […]

IRIS2 is the European Commission’s (EC) scheme for a major super-secure satellite constellation. It is already extremely late in coming to any sort of agreement as to how its proposed public/private finance can be structured. Now the European Space Agency (ESA) has spoken out with something of a rescue plan. ESA director general Josef Aschbacher […]

Last week Germany expressed in no uncertain terms its unhappiness over the EU-backed IRIS² Low Earth Orbiting system which would give Europe’s governments a secure, encrypted satellite fleet and an alternate to Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband system. (IRIS² Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). The German government strongly opposes IRIS² due to its […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has secured €900 million in funding for the European Commission’s (EC) IRIS2 proposed mega-constellation (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). ESA is the multi-orbit project’s technical manager. ESA delivered a briefing on March 27 and its director of telecommunications and navigation, Javier Benedicto, explained that the final bid […]

In “early April” the European Space Agency (ESA) expects to integrate the second booster stage onto the giant Ariane 6 rocket in readiness for the craft’s crucial inaugural flight from French Guiana. The debut flight is scheduled for between June 15th – July 31st. This pre-flight work is important and it is crucial that the […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has allocated a budget of €233 million to build a satellite with a target millimetre-level accuracy as the initial ‘demonstrator’ move for its Genesis and LEO-PNT scheme. The budget also covers two 5-satellite mini-constellations for a future orbital Positioning, Navigation and Timing system which are key elements for its Sat-Nav […]

Boca Raton-based Terran Orbital builds small-to-midsized satellites. Its order book includes 300 satellites for Rivada Networks, it has contracts in place with the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA’s Space development Agency. In 2023 it introduced a range of seven standardised satellite options for clients wanting a speedy solution for nano, micro, mini and small […]

Europe already has one rival to its giant Ariane rocket in the form of the Vega mid-sized launcher. However, Vega is itself subject to delays caused by a failure at the end of 2022 and in any case is only good for lower weight or orbital tasks. Stephane Israel, chief executive of Arianespace, questioned the […]