Mankind is fascinated by space. In the last century, it took its first cautious steps into the endless expanse – and made Earth’s orbit an essential part of our modern everyday lives. Whether it’s combating climate change, planning new roads, or providing everyday services such as Internet access while camping or watching TV with the family in the evening, nothing works without data from satellites anymore. Sovereign access to space is therefore indispensable in this regard.
Satellites are also central to Europe’s security and sovereignty, as demonstrated most recently by Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. For communication between military units, but also for rapid assistance and coordination in the event of environmental disasters or for independent cloud services, the European Union and its member states are planning a number of programs, such as the IRIS2 constellation. To build this infrastructure, Europe needs autonomous access to space. This is promised in the future by Ariane 6. However, with the last flight of Ariane 5 fast approaching and the delay of Ariane 6, Europe will soon lose this autonomous access to space indefinitely.
Autonomous access to orbit is absolutely fundamental to successful missions.
The ability to launch its own launch vehicles enables Europe to place satellites in orbit independently and flexibly. Both in terms of timing and mission duration or scope. As the Ariane 6 is still in development, Europe will soon be lacking its own launch vehicle and will be forced to rely on third party launch service providers. The reasons for this are home-grown and include entrenched and sluggish European structures, traditionalized monopolies, and a lack of decisiveness and willingness to invest. With the Georeturn principle, for example, everyone is happy, money flows, national supply programs are running, jobs are being preserved – no one has any reason to change anything. But Ariane 6 is severely delayed, overpriced and technologically treading water.
Everything different – the American way.
By their very nature, government programs are simply more sluggish and risk-averse than the free economy. The U.S. has shown that there is another way: With the shuttle gone, NASA put its needed services out to public bid in funding programs and asked commercial, competitive companies for their ideas and solutions. The selected contractors defined their technical goals and had to prove and demonstrate their capabilities. Contractors with underperformance measured against progress were eliminated from the funding program, and the freed-up funds were passed on to the remaining contractors. This is of critical importance. In this way, for example, by eliminating Rocketplane Kistler early on through a milestone-based review during the COTS program, more than $170 million was allocated to the successful development of Orbital Science’s Cygnus spacecraft. Such co-funding programs could also be used in Europe for the effective and efficient development of innovative and globally competitive launch vehicles.
Commercial launchers are an alternative!
In Europe, seven companies are working on launch vehicles of various sizes, many planning their first launch in the next two years. Against this background, the question arises: Why is the European Commission awarding the Copernicus contracts to Ariane 6 and Vega-C until 2027, when commercial providers will also be on the market by then?
Instead, it is making it easy on itself and awarding all contracts for the next five years in one go, while NewSpace launchers are stuck in ESA feasibility studies. However, multiple, long-term orders for Ariane 6 – also without a first flight – don’t seem to be a problem. As a result, ESA is depriving NewSpace companies of an important source of capital, which could actually accelerate their development once again – making alternative services available to ESA more quickly. A clear lose-lose situation, which can quite easily be turned into a win-win situation.
Initiating a new era in European space travel.
The way space and rockets are supported in Europe must be fundamentally reformed. ESA and the EU should not develop launchers themselves – institutionally – but act as anchor customers, ensuring demand for launches, co-financing the development and then purchase their services. The launch service providers must meet ESA and EU requirements by driving the development of their concepts individually and demonstrate their successes through milestones.
Europe’s space shuttle moment has now come.
Hardly any space vehicle is as well-known as the American space shuttle. Nevertheless, the U.S. government has parted with it. The main reason was the huge amount of launch, construction and maintenance costs. Therefore the U.S. made a courageous decision to retire the shuttle to a museum. They then entered a decade of dependency in human spaceflight, but used the time to revolutionize the way they fund and develop space technology. Europe, too, must start thinking now about how to succeed Ariane 6. The same mistakes must be avoided. And so all options should be explored, including commercial ones. The following is necessary for the Ariane 6 successor:
- Political will. Willingness to take risks. Europe talks about autonomy and strategic access to space, but no one is willing to take the risk to really do something, to make a difference. Yet Europe has a lot to gain and the commercial players have already shown many times that they are credible alternatives. What is needed is the political will to drive this forward from Germany in a leading role.
- Financial Support. Even the U.S., with its massive defense and NASA budgets, has had to come to the aid of domestic industry with billions in co-financing and anchor customer orders in the development of privately financed launch services. How can we in Europe and Germany believe that industry will make it here on its own? Yes, some companies will fail despite government support, and yes, in the short term, funds will be lost there. But the bottom line, in the long run and compared to institutional development programs, Europe would save an incredible amount of money, time and resources.
- Creation of competition. Following the American model, several providers start co-funded development programs in parallel. Program participants are measured solely on the technical progress of service development. If a company fails to meet the milestones, it is dropped from the program and the funds released flow to the remaining, more promising companies. The industry must therefore continue to convince commercially with its concept and prove itself technologically. This leads to fast, innovative and sustainable solutions that have already passed the competition.
- Space travel as a national top priority. Strengthen strategic relevance at national level by setting up a space office in the Chancellor’s Office. This can steer interdepartmental programmatic coordination, bundle the national space budget and implement the forthcoming space strategy. Implementation of the same will then require a comprehensive and results-oriented industrial policy. Close coordination with the national security and space security strategy is imperative in this context.
- Open Ariane 6 succession to private providers. Open and fair tender for the Ariane 6 successor by ESA with clear requirements on payload capacity, launch commitments, price target and co-funding maximum. For example, procurement of four launches per year with a payload of 10t into low Earth orbit, at a target price of €50 million with maximum co-funding of €500 million in development. The assessment and selection of contractors should be based on criteria such as the commercial potential of the service offered, its mission flexibility, technical feasibility within four years, and the credibility and prior experience of the provider required for this. The 2025 Ministerial Council Conference must be the starting point for this program, so preparations must begin immediately. This requires a Request for Information (RFI) process organized by ESA at the end of 2023, on the basis of which a pre-selection of the players to start the competition will be made in 2024.
The institutional development of Ariane 6 will cost over four billion euros. How many such commercial development programs could be set up with that? Backing only one horse was a strategic mistake, the consequences of which Europe is now feeling and which must not be repeated. In the future, several commercial projects must be funded in parallel to achieve the best possible result. To do this, there must be a fundamental willingness to leave well-trodden paths, to take risks and to support the industry strategically and financially. Then Europe can sustainably secure its sovereign access to space and defend its global interests.
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