France has already submitted: at the end of November, President Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi laid the foundations for closer cooperation between the two countries, including in space travel. Among other things, they want the Esa missiles Ariane and Vega further develop and also support financially. When visiting a Ariane-Factory in Vernon, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire then announced on St. Nicholas Day that the Ariane Group would build a reusable small rocket – in response to Elon Musks Falcon 9as he said. That this missile called Maïa from 2026 on, however, it will probably only be able to transport one tonne into space Falcon 9 at least almost 23 tons, but indicates that the French rocket builders are more likely to have the three German small rocket start-ups as competition in their sights.
It is signals like these that German space players and politicians should make prick up of their ears. There has long been no place in the industry for going it alone nationally – especially since European space travel is bundled and coordinated in the Esa agency, also in the interests of taxpayers. But there have always been power struggles among the Esa members, in which it comes to influence, money – and orders for the domestic industry. And Berlin should be well prepared for this.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has attracted attention since he took office a good two years ago because he wanted to strengthen European space travel, initiated a satellite system for broadband internet and accelerated the new generation of the Galileo navigation system. A year ago the commission awarded the construction of new ones Galileo-Satellites to Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, both with French participation. The fact that the previous German manufacturer OHB missed out also led to speculation that the award could be politically motivated.
The former French economics minister Breton had previously commissioned a study for the internet satellites to an industrial consortium with nine companies, including OHB, but also five groups with French influence. It was only in response to protests from German start-ups that he recently awarded another study to 14 smaller European companies and research institutes.
In February, Esa and the EU Commission are holding a “European Space Summit” for the first time in France – under the French Council Presidency, in the run-up to the French presidential elections. Macron will probably make a big contribution to the future field of space travel, so can be heard in the industry – flanked by the European internal market commissioner. That the talks at the summit are also about Internet satellites, successor packages for the Ariane 6 and possibly revolve around an independent European astronautical space flight, should be a great opportunity for Macron.
A sustainable European strategy is needed
He could benefit from the fact that the German traffic light coalition is only just getting started and the new space coordinator for Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Anna Christmann, was only appointed on Wednesday. The coalition has declared that it wants to strengthen space travel, develop a sustainable strategy in the service of climate protection and probably increase the budget. With this in mind, however, it will also be necessary to formulate cornerstones for future German space policy that go beyond the three sentences in the coalition agreement. And the planned launch site in the North Sea or the ongoing competition to promote small German missiles will not be enough. Especially since Esa has just proclaimed space travel as the key to a green, sustainable future on earth.
Berlin should turn the announced new space strategy into a sustainable European strategy: This includes more earth observation for climate protection, a European space law, a common solution against space debris or reusable transport systems into space. This is all the more important because the countries will probably also make preliminary decisions for the ESA Council of Ministers in November 2022 at the summit. Even if Germany is currently the largest contributor to ESA, the European space industry could quickly become a primarily French event if Germany does not take the initiative in February.