Space travel
Esa relies on competition – waiting for “Euclid” pictures
“This puts Europe on a very good path for space exploration”: ESA boss Josef Aschbacher. photo
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The issue of commercialization is becoming more prominent in Europe’s space efforts. Two competitions were launched at the ESA space summit. And Esa wants to present special images.
The European space agency Esa wants Strengthen Europe’s role in space with competition and innovation. By 2028, the organization wants to have a European spacecraft developed that can bring cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and back to Earth.
At the ESA space summit in Seville on Monday, the ESA countries launched a competition between European companies. Talks between Esa and the EU are scheduled for Tuesday, including on sustainability.
Esa had already decided on Monday to work more closely with the EU in the fight against climate change. Data from space should be used more for this purpose. Esa also wants to make space travel itself more sustainable. By 2030, it wants to drastically limit the creation of space debris in the orbits of the Earth and the Moon during future missions.
Esa wants to show the first images from the “Euclid” mission
On Tuesday afternoon, ESA plans to publish the first images of its new mission to research dark matter and dark energy. The “Euclid” probe was launched into space at the beginning of July. Among other things, your telescope will help determine the distance of galaxies. Esa wants to take a look into the past of the universe and research its development over the last ten billion years. Overall, data on billions of galaxies will be collected in order to learn more about dark matter and dark energy.
Competition is an important topic at the summit
Esa boss Josef Aschbacher spoke of a very important decision with regard to the competition for a freight vehicle. “This puts Europe on a very good path for space exploration.” He sees an opportunity for Europe to offer freight transport to commercial providers in the future. This could result in the use of future commercial space stations and the flight of astronauts there.
The vehicle could later be further developed for manned space travel and could also fly to other destinations if the countries wanted this, the ESA said. Autonomous access to space is an important topic for ESA. There is a European spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana and Esa can launch satellites into space using European launchers. However, there is no European spacecraft for manned flights.
Esa also wants to launch a competition for new launch vehicles. You have to change the way rockets are procured and are close to a paradigm shift towards a competitive model, said Aschbacher. In the future, they want to interact more dynamically and quickly with the industry. Anna Christmann, the Federal Government’s coordinator for aerospace and chair of the summit, said: “With the European Launcher Challenge we are focusing on competition and innovation in launch vehicles; this will be a milestone for European access to space.”
Germany wants to provide more support for launch vehicles
At the summit, Germany, France and Italy declared that they wanted to provide additional financial support for the European launchers Ariane 6 and Vega C. The two rockets are intended to make Europe’s space travel more competitive. However, Europe is currently in a crisis with regard to its launch vehicles. The Vega C remains on the ground after the failed first commercial flight in December. The larger Ariane 6 is scheduled to take off for the first time next year after several years of delay. Because the last Ariane 5, the predecessor to Ariane 6, has already taken off, Europe currently has no capacity of its own to launch larger satellites into space.