During a press briefing following the 332nd ESA Council meeting, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher announced that the agency will publish a call for proposals for the European Launcher Challenge in the coming week.
Announced in November 2023, the European Launcher Challenge is intended to support the development of sovereign launch capabilities and, ultimately, a successor to Ariane 6. While few specifics have been confirmed, early indications suggest the programme will offer multiple awards of €150 million each.
During his annual press briefing in January 2025, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher stated that the agency would publish a call for proposals, which the agency calls an Invitation to Tender, “around the February timeframe.” However, this tentative timeline wasn’t realized. The Director General has now said that the call will be published next week.
“On the European launcher challenge, we had quite an important debate on the future of launchers,” said Aschbacher. “The ITT, the Invitation to Tender, will go out next week and it will, of course, prepare the ground for the smaller launchers, microlaunchers and minilaunchers, to become part of this Challenge. And we do sincerely hope to see some of the first of these new launches being launched very soon.”
Companies will have six weeks from the date of the ITT publication to submit their proposals. Following an evaluation period, ESA will enter into dialogue with the Member States from which the most promising submissions originate, in order to prepare funding proposals for the programme. These will then be presented at the agency’s Ministerial Level Council meeting in November, where Member States will vote on whether to fund them. Once approved, the first European Launcher Challenge contracts can be awarded.
ESA’s First Step Toward the European Launcher Challenge
While the European Launcher Challenge ITT is set to be published next week, ESA had previously issued an initial Request for Information in June 2024. The aim of the call was to assess the current status and future ambitions of interested European launch service providers.
“This Campaign will let economic operators express their views and expectations on the future of European access to space and actively participate in the definition of the European Launcher Challenge,” explained the call.
In addition to the request itself, the call also includes a programmatic definition of what would be considered a “European” launch provider. According to the call, to qualify, a provider must have its company registration, decision-making centres, system development, system manufacturing, and launch operations located in ESA or EU Member States.
After a month-long delay, ESA announced that it will publish a call for proposals for its European Launcher Challenge next week.
