Tag: European Space Agency

ESA tests parachutes and guidance system for its proposed Space Rider reusable mini-shuttle

9:38 am

The engineering
Click for original image.

The European Space Agency (ESA) revealed today that it has completed drop tests from a helicopter of an engineering vehicle of its proposed Space Rider reusable mini-shuttle — similar in concept to the U.S. military’s X-37B — testing the spacecraft’s parachutes and re-entry guidance system.

The drop-test campaign had two objectives: the qualification of the parachutes used to slow the spacecraft during descent, and to test the software that controls the parafoil, guiding the Space Rider’s reentry module to its precise landing site. Space Rider models were dropped from a CH-47 Chinook Italian Army helicopter from altitudes ranging from 1 to 2.5 km, at the Italian military’s training and experimentation area Salto di Quirra.

The press release provides no movie of any of the drop tests, and the images it provides are almost all taken from very far away, making it impossible to see in detail what the engineering vehicle looks like. Only one picture clearly shows it, and that is what I have posted to the right. This is not a model of a spacecraft, but a square box carrying the parachutes and sensors.

Note also that ESA was doing similar drop tests last summer of a similar model. Apparently they aren’t yet ready to test the real thing.

This X-37B copy was first tested by ESA in 2015 and by 2017 the agency was promising it would be flying commercially by 2025. A decade later and they have not yet begun testing a full scale spacecraft. In addition, ESA has established some very complex rules about who can use it commercially, rules so complex I predict few will be interested.

Europe might be trying to adopt capitalism and freedom as its model, but in many ways it behaves as if it hasn’t the foggiest idea what it is doing.

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ESA picks five rocket startups for future launch contracts

9:00 am

European Space Agency

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it has chosen five rocket startups — out of twelve that applied to its “European Launcher Challenge” — now approved to bid on future ESA launch contracts.

The startups are Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg from Germany, PLD Space from Spain, MaiaSpace from France, and Orbex from Great Britain. Though none have successfully completed a first launch. all five showed the most advancement. Isar has had one attempted launch failure, while Rocket Factory lost its rocket during a static fire test just before launch. PLD meanwhile has achieved a short suborbital test, while Orbex has said it was ready to launch three years ago but was blocked by red tape in the United Kingdom.

MaiaSpace is technically the least advanced, but it is also a subdivision wholly owned by ArianeGroup, a partnership of Europe’s largest aerospace companies, Airbus and Safran. It was also established in partnership with France’s space agency CNES. Thus, it has well-established connections within Europe’s aerospace industry that makes it favored.

The goal of this ESA program is to shift from the government model it has used for decades, where ESA builds and owns the rockets, to develop a competitive rocket industry of independent companies that market their rockets to ESA for contracts. ESA has seen the success in the U.S. when NASA shifted to this capitalism model in the past decade, and wishes to emulate this.

Whether it remains uncertain. ESA is still mired by bureaucratic government thinking, as illustrated by the next phrase in this challenge:

The next phase of the proposal will see ESA open dialogue between the preselected companies and their respective Member States. This process will help formalise the proposal ahead of the agency’s Ministerial-Level Council meeting (CM25), which will take place toward the end of the year. At CM25, Member States are expected to formally commit funding to the initiative. Following the meeting, ESA will issue a Phase 2 call for proposals, which will be restricted to the preselected candidate companies. European Launcher Challenge contracts will then be awarded after a final evaluation period.

The ESA’s very nature seems to impose odious bureaucratic rules on its member nations that could hinder these private companies. For example, these rules now block any other independent rocket startups from bidding on contracts. Like the bootleggers during Prohibitioin, the ESA has essentially divided competition up by territory and given it to these favored companies. No one else is allowed in.

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European capsule startup wins $15 million grant

10:43 am

A Luxembourg-based startup aimed at building orbiting recoverable capsules for cargo as well as in-space manufacturing has won a $14.7 million grant from the European Innovation Council as part of its European Innovation Council Accelerator program to encourage development in Europe’s private commercial space sector.

The company, Space Cargo Unlimited, will use the money to develop what it calls its “BentoBox in-orbit testing and manufacturing platform.” It is also partnering with well-established European company Thales-Alenia, with the BentoBox development based on previous work done for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Rider demonstrator project.

The overall nature of this grant and work illustrates Europe’s aggressive shift in the past two years from the government model, where ESA designed and owned everything, to the capitalism model, where the government is merely the customer, buying what it needs from the private sector. The government-built Space Rider, which was intended to be a re-usable space plane similar to the X-37B, has never flown. Now, its technology is being repurposed by private European companies for their own spacecraft with the intention of making profits. And this Bentobox project is a prime example.

The inaugural flight of the BentoBox platform as a standalone system using the ATMOS inflatable heatshield is expected in the fourth quarter of 2025. As of a late 2024 update, Space Cargo Unlimited had already secured bookings for 80% of the inaugural flight, and 50% and 40% of the second and third flights, respectively.

Note too that Space Cargo is a European competitor with Varda in the U.S. It appears Europe wants some of this business for itself.

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Rocket Lab wins launch contract from the European Space Agency

9:09 am

The American rocket company Rocket Lab announced today that it has been awarded a launch contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to place two European-built GPS-type test satellites into orbit.

Rocket Lab will launch two “Pathfinder A” spacecraft for ESA, provided by European satellite prime contractors Thales Alenia Space and GMV, from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 no earlier than December 2025. The spacecraft will be deployed to a 510km low Earth orbit as part of a mission to test a new approach of providing location, direction, and timing services from satellites in low orbit – otherwise called LEO-PNT (Low Earth Orbit Positioning, Navigation, and Timing). ESA’s LEO-PNT demonstration mission will assess how a low Earth orbit fleet of satellites can work in combination with the Galileo and EGNOS constellations in higher orbits that provide Europe’s own global navigation system.

That ESA gave Rocket Lab this contract illustrates the failure of this government agency’s own commercial rocket division, Arianespace, as well as the slowly emerging new commercial rocket startups in Europe. ESA likely rejected Arianespace’s Ariane-6 and Vega-C rockets as too expensive. These rockets were also likely unable to meet the required launch time table. It also could not pick any independent private European companies, because none have yet to successfully launch.

And ESA did this even as top government officials in Europe have been loudly demanding that Europe only launch its satellites on European rockets. That demand might make a nice sound bite, but reality trumps nice sound bites every time.

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ESA partners with French company to build space plane “demonstrator”

1:12 pm

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the French company Dassault Aviation yesterday announced a partnership for building a space plane “demonstrator” that will lay the groundwork for developing a family of such spacecraft dubbed Vortex.

The ESA press release is here. Both this release and the Dassault release linked to above provided little detailed information, other than the demonstrator will be a small scale suborbital testbed for eventually developing the full scale orbital vehicle. Neither a budget nor time schedule were even hinted at.

ESA has funded a number of these demonstrators in the past decade — Themis and Calisto come to mind — all of which are behind schedule and have as yet not flown. It will be interesting to see if this project fares better, as it seems it is being led by a single commercial company rather than the government run mishmashes of the other projects.

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Monaco-based startup unveils its proposed European-built lunar rover

10:17 am

Capitalism in space: The Monaco-based startup Venturi Space, this week unveiled its own proposed European-built lunar rover, dubbed Mona Luna. and offered it to both the European Space Agency (ESA) and France’s CNES space agency.

Venturi has received some support from ESA for key technologies needed for the rover. The company is hoping to win support for a rover development project at ESA’s ministerial conference in late November, when member states will decide on funding for agency programs for the next three years. Antonio Delfino, Venturi’s director of space affairs] argued a rover like Mona Luna fit a gap in Europe’s exploration plans. Mona Lisa is designed to be delivered to the lunar surface on ESA’s Argonaut lander, which would launch on an Ariane 64.

The company has said it is willing to commit some of its own investment capital to develop the rover, should either ESA or CNES decide to buy it. Whether ESA or CNES agree to build this rover however will likely depend on whether either has a program to land on the Moon. At the moment the status of NASA’s Artemis program is unclear, and it was that program that Europe was relying on to get to the Moon.

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Europe’s old aerospace industry struggles with the concept of competition

9:46 am

Made in European Union

Two stories today from Europe’s aerospace industry suggest that its older big space companies are having real difficulties dealing with the new space landscape of competition and freedom.

First, Arianespace and Avio issued a statement demanding that Europe require that all European launches occur on European rockets.

The statement warned that without “sustained support,” European rocket builders were at risk of losing out to institutionally backed competitors from the US. “Major space powers support their industries through stable and guaranteed institutional markets, enabling long-term investments, innovation, and the preservation of leadership,” explained the statement.

…The pair argue that Europe risks falling behind not due to a lack of technical capability, but because of structural market weaknesses. While Ariane 6 and Vega-C have demonstrated competitiveness and reliability, they caution that this progress is fragile in the absence of guaranteed long-term demand.

While a preference for European launch providers is clearly in the best interest of both Avio and Arianespace, the pair did reserve a slice for new entrants to the market. “Enshrining European preference as an untouchable principle would support not only Ariane and Vega, but also foster the development of emerging projects in the small launcher sector.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence reveals the true reasons behind this call against competition. » Read more

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Europe’s Solar Orbiter takes first images of the Sun’s south pole

9:27 am

The south pole of the Sun
Click for original image.

Because its orbit has now dropped 17 degrees below the ecliptic plane of the solar system, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter probe has been able to snap the first images of the Sun’s south pole, as shown by the two pictures to the right.

The [two images show] the Sun’s south pole as recorded on 16–17 March 2025, when Solar Orbiter was viewing the Sun from an angle of 15° below the solar equator. This was the mission’s first high-angle observation campaign, a few days before reaching its current maximum viewing angle of 17°.

The instruments each observe the Sun in a different way. PHI images the Sun in visible light (left) and maps the Sun’s surface magnetic field (right).

The magnetic field data on the right has revealed that at present the field at the pole is “a mess,” because the Sun is presently at solar maximum.

While a normal magnet has a clear north and south pole, the PHI instrument’s magnetic field measurements show that both north and south polarity magnetic fields are present at the Sun’s south pole. This happens only for a short time during each solar cycle, at solar maximum, when the Sun’s magnetic field flips and is at its most active. After the field flip, a single polarity should slowly build up and take over at the Sun’s poles. In 5–6 years from now, the Sun will reach its next solar minimum, during which its magnetic field is at its most orderly and the Sun displays its lowest levels of activity.

Solar Orbiter is now well positioned to observe the expected changes in the Sun’s magnetic field as sunspot activity ramps down to solar minimum.

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Long delayed ESA project to build a reusable first stage delayed again

9:28 am

The long delayed European Space Agency (ESA) project dubbed Themis to develop and test a reusable first stage for use in European rockets has been delayed again, with the first test hop now expected to occur next year instead of the fourth quarter of 2025.

Themis was first proposed by ESA in 2019, with the first hops expected in 2022. Three years later little has happened in the project. Instead, it appears the nations in the ESA as well as the new rocket startups on that continent have grown very disinterested in government-run projects like this. The closing paragraph at the article at the link illustrates this starkly:

While another delay to the start of the first Themis launch campaign is frustrating, the downstream consequences are likely to be minimal. The only direct application of the technology developed under the Themis programme is the first stage of the two-stage MaiaSpace rocket. However, the company appears to be continuing the development of its first stage largely independently of Themis, meaning the latest delay is unlikely to affect its progress.

In other words, this whole program is divorced entirely from any commercial application. We should therefore expect that once these test flights finally occur, the entire thing will vanish, like so many other similar government-run test programs by NASA and ESA.

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Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace signs deal to build lander for ESA

10:10 am

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

The Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace — about to attempt its second unmanned lunar landing — has now signed a $3 millionj contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to begin design and construction of its proposed Magpie lander.

The agreement comes in the context of the Small Missions for Exploration initiative launched by ESA. This initiative called for innovative and short-term mission ideas for lunar exploration. ispace’s MAGPIE concept was selected and awarded a pre-phase A contract on Dec. 12, 2024. Under the Phase 1 extension agreement, ispace-EUROPE will collaborate with ESA on the implementation of the lunar exploration mission. In aggregate, the value of the contracts for the two phases is €2,695,000 (approximately ¥437 million JPY).

The company already has contracts for future landers with both NASA and Japan’s space agency JAXA. It appears these space agencies consider the company’s engineering to be acceptable, even though its only attempt to land on the Moon, Hakuto-R1, crashed in 2023 when its software shut the engines down prematurely, three kilometers above the surface.

Ispace’s second lander, Resilience, is presently in lunar orbit and is now targeting a landing attempt tomorrow, June 5, 2025, at 3:17 pm (Eastern). The map to the right shows the landing zone, in Mare Frigoris in the high northern latitudes of the near side of the Moon.

This contract by ESA also illustrates Europea’s increasing shift to the capitalism model. Rather than design and build the lander itself, ESA is buying this product from the private sector. It will likely get what wants sooner and for far less money.

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More missions to Apophis when it flies past Earth in 2029?

11:45 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon (not to scale) showing Apophis’s
path in 2029

There were two stories today that heralded the addition of one real and two potential new spacecraft to rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it flies past the Earth on April 13, 2029.

First, the European Space Agency (ESA) awarded a 1.5 million euro contract to the Spanish company Emxys to build a small cubesat that will fly on ESA’s Ramses mission to Apophis. This is the second cubesat now to fly attached to Ramses, with the first designed to use radar to study Apophis’ interior.

The second CubeSat, led by Emxys, will be deployed from the main spacecraft just a few kilometres from Apophis. It will study the asteroid’s shape and geological properties and will carry out an autonomous approach manoeuvre before attempting to land on the surface. If the landing is successful, it will also measure the asteroid’s seismic activity.

Second, American planetary scientists have been lobbying NASA to repurpose the two small Janus spacecraft for a mission to Apophis. These probes were originally built to go to an asteroid as a secondary payload when the Pysche asteroid mission was launched, but when Pysche was delayed they could no longer go that that asteroid on the new launch date. Since then both Janus spacecraft have been in storage, with no place to go.

The scientists say they could easily be repurposed to go to Apophis, but NASA will have to commit to spending the cost for launch, approximately $100 million. NASA officials were not hostile to this idea, but they were also non-committal. I suspect no decision can be made until the new administrator, Jared Isaacman, is confirmed by the Senate and takes office.

Time however is a factor. The longer it takes to make a decision the fewer options there will be to get it to Apophis on time.

At the moment there is only one spacecraft in space and on its way to Apophis, and that is the repurposed Osiris-Rex mission, now called Osiris-Apex. Japan might also send a craft past Apophis as part of its mission to another asteroid.

Learning as much as we can about Apophis is critical, as there is a chance it will impact the Earth sometime in the next two hundred years.

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Europe and India sign agreement to work together on manned space flight

9:35 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced that it has signed an agreement with the Indian government that will lay the groundwork for them to work together on manned space exploration, first in connection with their future space station plans and later on lunar exploration.

ESA and ISRO declared their intent to work together on the interoperability of rendezvous and docking systems to allow their respective spacecraft to work together in low Earth orbit. They will also examine further activities related to astronaut training, analogue space missions – where teams test aspects of space missions in ground-based simulations – and parabolic flight activities.

…Future cooperation possibilities include ESA astronaut flight opportunities to the planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) and early scientific utilisation, as well as developing infrastructure in low Earth orbit. The two space agencies are also discussing alignment on payloads and robotic scientific missions to the Moon.

Faced with the decommissioning of ISS in 2030, as well as the likely end to several major Artemis components (Orion and Lunar Gateway) that ESA has had a major part, it appears Europe has quickly begun looking for other alternatives. It already has partnered with the American consortium building the Starlab space station, but this new agreement with India gives it more options.

India meanwhile gets aid and support from Europe. It could even be that both are negotiating transferring some of Europe’s Lunar Gateway modules to India’s space station.

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ESA’s issues a non-reaction to Trump’s proposed NASA cuts

9:23 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday issued its first reaction to Trump’s proposed cuts to NASA’s Artemis program, including cancellation of the Orion capsule and Lunar Gateway station that ESA is building major components, and essentially said nothing.

NASA has briefed ESA about the Budget Request, and while some questions still remain about the full repercussions, follow-up meetings are already taking place with NASA. ESA remains open to cooperation with NASA on the programmes earmarked for a reduction or termination but is nevertheless assessing the impact with our Member States in preparation for ESA’s June Council.

ESA and NASA have a long history of successful partnership, particularly in exploration – a highly visible example of international cooperation – where we have many joint activities forging decades of strong bonds between American and European colleagues. Space exploration is an endeavour in which the collective can reach much farther than the individual. Thus, ESA has strong partnerships with space agencies from around the globe and is committed to not only being a reliable partner, but a strong and desirable partner.

Basically ESA is holding off any major response until they get more information from NASA and the Trump administration. It also notes that any more detailed response must wait until it holds its own meetings scheduled for June and later.

ESA’s problem is that it tied its manned space effort to NASA’s Orion capsule and Gateway station. On Orion it is building the service module, and has a number under construction that now might be unneeded if only two more Orions fly. As for Gateway, Europe is building major components of the station’s central habitation module. It is also building, in partnership with Japan, a second habitation module for their use. The cancellation of Gateway leaves these modules hanging with nowhere to go.

Though we should expect some pushback from Europe in an attempt to save Lunar Gateway, I expect these events will end up doing more for Europe’s nascent commercial launch industry. What the continent really needs is a private competitive aerospace industry making money in space. If it gets that, it will no longer have to rely on NASA, or ESA for that matter.

And based on the recent policy actions by ESA’s major partners (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK) to shift from a government-run centralized space program run by ESA’s Arianespace to encouraging the development of an independent competing private launch industry, I predict Europe will shift even more focus in this direction when they finally respond to the Trump cuts.

Expect European to call for more autonomy and European-built rockets and spacecrafts that do not rely on NASA or American proposals. This will not necessarily end its space partnership with the U.S., but it will be less beholden to it.

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Viasat wins contract to build ESA lunar communications constellation

1:20 pm

As part of a larger European Space Agency (ESA)) project, Viasat has won an ESA contract to build a communications constellation that will orbit the Moon.

Viasat will be responsible for the design and development of the communication network and will lead the definition of the end-to-end communications services: aiming to provide a communications network for lunar landers, rovers, orbiters, and other technology. Viasat will also be responsible for the communication earth ground infrastructure and communication lunar surface user terminals. Telespazio, as Moonlight program lead, has executed a contract with Viasat for the initial design phase of the communication system. This work will be fully funded by the European Space Agency throughout Phase 1.

The UK Space Agency, as one of the major contributors to ESA’s Moonlight program, selected Viasat to lead the UK ecosystem to deliver the communications capability. Moonlight services will be deployed in phases, targeting initial capability at the end of 2028 with full operations aimed by 2030.

It does seem that there are a lot of competing communications/navigation constellations under development, from China, Europe, and the U.S. It also appears that there is far less coordination between them then there should be.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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ESA isn’t forcing private companies building cargo capsules to hire contractors from all its partners

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: When the European Space Agency (ESA) in May 2024 awarded two contracts to the French startup The Exploration Company and the established Italian contractor Thales-Alenia to develop unmanned capsules for bringing cargo to and from orbit, it also made a major policy change that went unnoticed at the time.

During a press briefing on 23 May [2024], following the Phase 1 awards, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher explained that the agency would not require participants in the initiative to adhere to its geo-return policy. The policy typically ensures that contracts are distributed among ESA member states in proportion to their financial contributions. “We contract very differently because we will be the anchor customer,” said Aschbacher. “That means we buy a service. We give industry all the freedom to find the best solution technically, but also the best partners, with whomever they want to work with.”

What means is that the two companies, in developing their capsules, have not been required to spread the work out across Europe. Instead, they have been free to do the work entirely in house, or hire just the subcontractors they prefer, from anywhere. As the CEO of The Exploration Company noted, “In plain terms, we choose our suppliers based purely on quality and cost—not because they’re French, Italian, or German. We choose the best supplier for the job.”

In the past, as part of its bureaucratic and political needs, ESA’s “geo-return policy” required every space project to spread the wealth to all of the ESA’s partner nations, in amounts proportional to their financial contributions to the ESA. The result was that every project went overbudget, took too long to complete, and was unrealistically complex. Many projects simply failed because of these issues. Others took decades to get completed, for too much money. And when it came to rockets, it produced the Ariane-6, that is too expensive and cannot compete in today’s market.

This decision last year means that ESA is very slowly adopting the concept of capitalism in space, whereby it acts merely as a customer, buying products that are completely owned and controlled by the seller.

This new policy presently only applies to the development phase of these capsules. Though no decision has been made about the construction phase, involving much more money, ESA publications indicate it will apply there as well.

Though it is taking time, Europe’s space bureaucracy is beginning to accept the idea of freedom and capitalism.

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Airbus wins contract to build lander for Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover

5:17 pm

Low resolution cropped section of map
Geology map for Franklin landing site. Click for
original image. Click here for original article.

The European Space Agency (ESA) late yesterday announced that it has awarded Airbus a $194 million contract to build the lander that will place Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover on the Martian surface, replacing the Russian lander that became unavailable when the ESA/Russian partnership ended after Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022.

Airbus announced late March 28 (Eastern time) that it was selected by ESA and Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the mission, to build the landing platform for that rover mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.

The landing platform is the part of the ExoMars spacecraft that handles the final phases of its descent to the Martian surface in 2030, including performing the final landing burn. After landing, the platform will deploy ramps to allow the ExoMars rover, named Rosalind Franklin, to roll onto the Martian surface.

This project was first begun in the early 2010s, with a launch date targeting 2018. Initially a partnership between ESA and NASA, Obama canceled all American participation in 2012. Russia picked up the slack, but then the mission had numerous technical problems that caused it to miss first that 2018 launch window, and then 2020 window as well. Then, just months before launch in 2022, Russia invaded the Ukraine, resulting in Europe ending all its partnership deals with Russia.

The mission is now working to launch in the 2028 window. We shall see if it can meet that date.

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ESA announces competitive program to encourage new European rocket startups

8:56 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced a new competitive award program, dubbed the European Launcher Challenge, designed to give contracts to new European rocket startups to help them develop their own rockets.

Proposals are due no later than May 5, 2025. The program will award up to $183 million to each company, depending on its application. The program has two components, one for rockets that will serve government contracts and will launch beginning in 2026, and the second for rockets that are upgraded by 2028. In both cases a company must complete a demonstration launch by 2027 to qualify for any award. More details here.

Essentially, ESA is structuring this program to provide free subsidies to those companies it decides it likes, with anywhere from two to three getting awards. In January six rocket startups — HyImpulse, Latitude, MaiaSpace, Orbex, Rocket Factory Augsburg and The Exploration Company — submitted a joint letter to ESA endorsing the program and outlining how they think the program should be structured.

Interestingly, the two rocket startups did not sign that letter, Isar Aerospace from Germany and PLD from Spain. Of all these companies, these two are actually closest to launch, with Isar about to attempt its first launch and PLD having already completed a suborbital test flight and building its launch sites in French Guiana and Duqm, Oman.

Officials at PLD are quoted here as apparently opposed to this ESA award program.

“We need to let the market select a winner,” Raúl Verdú, co-founder and chief business development officer of the company, said at the January conference. “Today, to be very honest, it is super-hard to select who will be the winner.”

It will be interesting to see this government program play out. Right now it appears designed to play favorites, a typical European approach. There is a good chance however that it will not do this, and will instead succeed in jumpstarting an independent, competitive European rocket industry. The program’s main structure remains sound, truly capitalistic, whereby the government owns nothing and simply acts as a customer, buying rockets from competing companies on the open market.

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Europe’s Hera asteroid probe sends back data from Mars fly-by

1:00 pm

Deimos and Mars as seen by Hera
Click to see full movie.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Hera probe, on its way to study the Didymos/Dimorphos asteroid binary, has successfully sent back images and data obtained during its close-by of Mars yesterday.

The infrared image to the right, a screen capture from a short movie assembled from Hera’s first images, shows the Martian moon Deimos with Mars in the background. The mission scientists have compiled all of these first images taken by Hera to create a short movie, that I have embedded below. From the movie’s caption:

The car-sized Hera spacecraft was about 1000 km away from Deimos as these images were acquired. Deimos orbits approximately 23 500 km from the surface of Mars and is tidally locked, so that this side of the moon is rarely seen. Hera’s TIRI – supplied to the mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA – sees in mid-infrared spectral bands to chart surface temperature. Because Deimos lacks an atmosphere, the side of the moon being illuminated by the Sun is considerably warmer than the planet beneath it.

Although it appears as if Deimos is passing in front of Mars from south to north, the image was actually taken as Hera passed very close to Deimos from north to south at high speed.

Deimos appears brighter than Mars. This means that the surface of airless Deimos is hotter than the surface of Mars. The material covering the surface of Deimos has low reflectivity and is pitch black. This allows it to absorb sunlight well and become hotter. In contrast, the surface of Mars is highly reflective, and its atmosphere transports heat from the warm daytime side to the cooler nighttime side. This is why there is a large temperature difference between Mars and Deimos.

These infrared images also tell us the excellent quality of the camera. Note how detailed the features are on the Martian surface. When Hera gets to Didymos/Dimorphos in December 2026 it is going to be able to document those two asteroids in remarkable detail, including the results of the Dart impact on Dimorphos in September 2022.
» Read more

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Europe’s Hera probe to fly past Mars tomorrow

10:22 am

As part of its journey to the binary asteroid Didymos/Dimorphos, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera probe will slingshot past Mars tomorrow, obtaining images and data of both the red planet and its moon Deimos.

Three instruments will gather data, a navigational camera, and infrared camera, and a spectral camera, with the goal mostly to calibrate the instruments and make sure they are working as designed. The data won’t be available until the next day, when the ESA will hold a webcast unveiling the images.

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After a decade of development, ESA finally starts testing a part of its Callisto grasshopper

9:12 am

Callisto's basic design
Callisto’s basic design

My heart be still! First proposed in 2015 as Europe’s answer to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the European Space Agency, in partnership with Japan, has finally begun acoustical testing of just one part of its Callisto grasshopper-type reusable test prototype, as shown on the right.

Callisto consists of five main sections: the Aft Bay, which includes the engine and landing legs, the LH2 Tank, the LOx Tank, the VEB, and the Fairing. The VEB houses much of the demonstrator’s electronics, including its onboard computer, avionics, and a reaction control system that uses H2O2 propellant. Its distinctive features include a pair of control fins.

In addition to confirming that the VEB had been transported to the CNES facilities in Toulouse, the 4 March Institute of Space Systems update also revealed that the acoustic test campaign for the key Callisto module had commenced last week. The acoustic test campaign simulates the intense sound vibrations the demonstrator will experience during flight to ensure structural integrity and component reliability.

The whole project has a budget of $100 million. The first test hop won’t occur until 2026, eleven years after the project began, and six years behind its original launch date. In that same time, SpaceX has completed several hundred commercial landings of its Falcon 9 first stage, reusing those stages up to two dozen times.

Nor is Callisto part of any program to develop a similar reusable rocket. It is a typical dead-end government project, with ESA having no clear goal to apply it commercially. The best Europe can hope for is that the engineering lessons from its tests will be given freely to the new European commercial rocket startups, so that they can use it someday.

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French official lauds Ariane 6 launch; demands Europe have its own launch capability

10:08 am

Philippe Baptiste, France’s Minister for Higher Education and Research, yesterday loudly touted the second successful launch of Ariane 6 rocket, even though it occurred years late and costs far more than any other rocket on the market today.

Baptiste did so even as he insisted the Europe must continue to have its own launch capability so that it need not depend on rockets from other countries.

Europe must have sovereignty in space and “not yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX or another competitor that may seem trendier, more reliable, or cheaper,” Baptiste [said]. “This first commercial launch of Ariane 6 is not just a technical and one-off success. It marks a new milestone, essential in the choice of European space independence and sovereignty. In the labyrinth of the global space race, Ariane 6 is the guiding thread of our strategic autonomy for the years to come.

“We must also collectively advance, as Europeans, on the governance of Europe’s space ambitions. We must ask ourselves all the questions, without taboos. For Europe in space, I am convinced that the European Union must fully assume its role as the political leader in this matter. The challenges are immense, no one knows this better than we do.”

Note Baptiste’s focus on having the European Union (EU) run things, with a focus on Ariane-6, despite its high cost. He was previously head of France’s space agency CNES, which for years has used the EU and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) partners help pay for France’s space program by requiring that all rocket launches be run by ESA’s commercial division, Arianespace.

That situation is now changing, with other ESA nations (Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) all breaking free from Arianespace and instead encouraging the development of competing private rocket startups independent of ESA or Arianespace. Moreover, these ESA partners have aggressive reduced Arianespace’s areas of control. It no longer runs the French Guiana spaceport. Its management of the Vega-C rocket has been transferred back to the Italian company Avio, which builds it. All it now has is Ariane-6, which has limited value because it is so expensive.

So while Baptiste desire for European autonomy matches the efforts of these European countries, his apparent desire to keep all control within the continent’s centralized government authority has been rejected. Europe has a chance to compete, but only because it is freeing its rocket startups from government control.

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Ariane-6 successfully launches for the second time

9:47 am

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial arm, Arianespace, today successfully launched from French Guiana its new Ariane-6 rocket for the second time, this time placing its first commercial payload, a military Earth imaging satellite, into orbit.

As of posting the satellite has not yet been deployed by the upper stage, as several additional engine burns are required over then hour or so to place it in the right orbit. As there were some issues with this upper stage on the rocket’s first launch, the successful completion of these burns is critical for the rocket’s future. So far the first major burn has been completed as planned. UPDATE: The payload has been successfully deployed in the proper orbit.

This was Europe’s first launch in 2025, so there is no change in leader board for the 2025 launch race:

26 SpaceX
9 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

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ESA astronaut with no right leg cleared by medical board to fly to ISS

9:47 am

An international medical board has now cleared ESA astronaut John McFall to fly on a future long-duration mission to ISS, despite the fact that his right leg had been lost due to a motorcycle accident when he was nineteen and wears a prosthesis.

He is the first person with such a disability to be medically approved to train for missions to the station. “John is today certified as an astronaut who can fly on a long-duration mission on the International Space Station, and I think this is an incredible step ahead in our ambition to broaden the access to society to space,” Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, said at a briefing to announce the certification.

ESA selected McFall as part of an astronaut class announced in 2022. That selection process included an effort by ESA to pick what it called at the time a “parastronaut” to see if people with some physical disabilities could safely fly to space.

This is actually a great idea. As one Russia astronaut once said to me, “The legs are mostly useless in weightlessness.” Testing to see how McFall does on a six-month mission will tell us whether the weightlessness environment is a good one for people who can’t walk, as has been theorized for decades.

At the moment McFall has not yet been assigned to any scheduled flight. He joins a class of twelve astronauts selected by ESA in 2022. He is also being considered as a possible astronaut on a proposed all-British tourist flight that Axiom is considering flying.

It is unfortunate that the racist Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies of the past decade poison this decision. I am certain many will assume McFall’s future flight will be done just for those reasons, and thus will discount it.

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Ariane-6 gets more launch contracts

9:14 am

Despite high launch cost of the Ariane-6 rocket, the European Space Agency (ESA) this week arranged three more launch contracts with Arianespace, which manages the rocket.

During the 17th European Space Conference, held in Brussels on 28 and 29 January, Arianespace was awarded contracts to launch PLATO [an ESA science mission to study exoplanets], Sentinel-1D [an ESA Earth observation satellite], and a pair of second-generation Galileo satellites. [part of ESA’s GPS-type satellite constellation]. Arianespace currently has a backlog of 30 Ariane 6 launches, 18 of which are for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation.

These new launch deals are expressly because ESA wants to force feed contracts to Ariane-6 to keep it whole, as part of its policy to launch its European payloads on European rockets. The result is that ESA is also forced to pay too much for its launches. Note too that these payloads are expressly ESA science or research projects, which also applies to most of Ariane-6’s backlog of launches outside of its Kuiper launches. Profit is not the main goal of these payloads. I doubt this rocket will get much additional business from commercial satellite companies that must make a profit to survive. It costs too much.

This is also the reason ESA member nations Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom are pushing hard to get new European private rocket startups operational. They don’t like being forced to pay too much for launches, and want commercial options outside of Ariane-6.

For the moment however ESA is propping up Ariane-6 and Arianespace. It means Ariane-6 will be around for awhile, even as it limits what ESA can do in space.

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European rocket startups team up to send letter to ESA outlining their priorities

11:18 am

In a surprising joint action, six European rocket startups have sent a detailed letter to the European Space Agency (ESA) outlining several recommendations about policy required by these rocket startups in order for their industry to prosper.

The companies involved were HyImpulse, Latitude, MaiaSpace, Orbex, Rocket Factory Augsburg and The Exploration Company. The letter’s recommendations were wide-ranging and appeared focused on getting ESA to free up the industry from traditional European red tape.

  • Provide funding in the range of €150 million to a limited number of rocket companies, not all. The companies say that funding will make it possible for the winning companies to raise another €1 billion in private investment capital. Limiting the number of companies getting awards will also force competition and achievement. The awards should also be granted only after specific milestones are achieved, not based on promises of eventual achievement.
  • Ease access to launchpads both at French Guiana and in Norway and the United Kingdom. Right now French rule-making at French Guiana is hindering that access, and ESA rules about launches make it harder to use the new commercial spaceports in Norway and the UK.
  • Red tape must be reduced. For example, ESA should not set rules on the size of payloads, but give companies “the freedom to determine their payload capabilities, allowing market dynamics to drive innovation rather than imposing artificial requirements.”

That the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace did not sign this letter is interesting, especially since it is now only a few months from completing its first orbital test launch of its Spectrum rocket from the new spaceport in Andoya, Norway. It also has a twenty-year lease for that launchpad.

It is also interesting that the letter did not include the newly proposed orbital spaceport Esrange in Sweden. That launch site has been used for decades for suborbital tests. It is now attempting to make itself available for orbital tests as well. Its interior location however is likely the reason these rocket companies left it out. Too many issues for them to consider launching from there.

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ESA releases three images taken by BepiColombo during its Mercury fly-by yesterday

10:57 am

BepiColombo image from January 8, 2025 fly-by of Mercury
Click for original image. For the annotated version
click here.

The European Space Agency (ESA) today released what it called the three best images taken by the ESA/JAXA joint mission BepiColombo to Mercury in its closest fly-by of the planet yesterday.

The image to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, shows the north polar regions of Mercury. The probe’s solar array is visible to the right.

Flying over the ‘terminator’ – the boundary between day and night – the spacecraft got a unique opportunity to peer directly down into the forever-shadowed craters at planet’s north pole.

The rims of craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer [the four craters in a line at the terminator] cast permanent shadows on their floors. This makes these unlit craters some of the coldest places in the Solar System, despite Mercury being the closest planet to the Sun!

Excitingly, there is existing evidence that these dark craters contain frozen water. Whether there is really water on Mercury is one of the key Mercury mysteries that BepiColombo will investigate once it is in orbit around the planet.

This was BepiColombo’s last slingshot maneuver. It is now set to enter Mercury orbit in late 2026, where it will split into two separate orbiters, one build by ESA and the other by Japan’s space agency JAXA.

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The biggest members of ESA cut their annual contributions to the partnership

9:43 am

In a continuation of the recent trend to go their own way in space, most of the largest partners in the European Space Agency (ESA) have decided to cut back their annual contributions this year to the agency.

The European Space Agency’s 2025 budget has dropped below its 2024 level after Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom collectively cut their contributions by €430 million.

During his annual press briefing on 9 January, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed that the ESA budget for 2025 would be €7.68 billion, down from €7.79 billion in 2024. The reduction in the agency’s budget could have been far worse, as all of the ‘big four’ countries, apart from France, significantly reduced their contributions.

Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain all reduced their contributions. Except for Belgium, all have instead been recently diverting such funds directly either to space startups in their own country (see here and here), or forgoing contributing to large ESA projects and instead buying the services from other private sources (see here).

In general, it appears the bigger nations in Europe have realized that ESA has not been providing them a good deal. It takes their money, but doesn’t deliver competitive goods. Consider the Ariane-6 rocket. Conceived by ESA and ArianeGroup in 2015, it was five years late in launching. Worse, it was conceived as an entirely expendable rocket — even though SpaceX had just proven in ’15 that re-usability was possible — so that it is now too expensive to compete in today’s rocket market.

ESA also requires its projects to distribute contracts among all the partners, which increases costs and slows development.

In the past five years these countries have been increasingly bypassing ESA, especially when it comes to rocketry. Instead of having all European rockets built and managed by ESA’s commercial arm, Arianespace, these nations are switching to the capitalism model, whereby they each purchase launches from independent competing rocket companies.

The ESA budget cuts reflect this continuing trend. No point in giving cash to this moribund bureaucracy when the money can be better spent elsewhere.

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Italy’s military negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications

8:14 am

In what would be a five year deal costing $1.56 billion, Italy’s military is presently negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications, rather than wait for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) IRIS2 constellation, which is years from launch and likely to experience delays, as do all of ESA’s projects.

By negotiating a five-year deal with SpaceX, Italy may be aiming to bridge the gap until Europe’s IRIS2 system becomes operational. With the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, the country’s Armed Forces likely view secure military communications as an urgent priority. However, critics may argue that the €1.5 billion price tag represents 14.15% of the total IRIS2 budget for just five years of service. For context, Italy is the third-largest contributor to the European Union, with its €18.6 billion contribution in 2023 accounting for roughly 10% of the EU’s total budget.

This story illustrates the good business sense of Elon Musk. He moved to get Starlink in orbit ahead of anyone else, and now is reaping the cash awards because he can provide services while others cannot.

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ESA approves a slightly smaller preliminary budget for 2025

9:26 am

The council running the European Space Agency (ESA) has now approved a preliminary budget for 2025 of $8 billion, a very slight reduction from the 2024 budget.

According to [ESA’s director general Josef] Aschbacher, the budget includes €4.8 billion in contributions from ESA member states, approximately €1.7 billion from the European Union, and €1.2 billion from “some other sources.” A more detailed breakdown of the 2025 ESA budget will be released during the DG’s annual press briefing, which is expected to occur on 9 January 2025.

It is also expected that the final budget will be higher once the legislatures of ESA’s numerous member states approve their contributions to the agency. Right now German, France, and Italy are the largest contributors. All three governments have in the past two years clearly signaled their determination to support commercial space. This should translate into support for ESA, though the two are becoming increasingly separated. Those nations could also decide there is no reason to give cash to this bureaucracy, and instead use it to directly fund their new private rocket startups.

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Europe to spend $11 billion to build its own Starlink government constellation

9:26 am

The European Union has now finalized its $11 billion plan to build a government-owned 290 satellite constellation, dubbed IRIS2, to compete with Starlink and the many other private constellations already launching.

On 16 December, ESA, the European Commission, and the SpaceRIDE consortium, led by European satellite operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, signed a €10.55 billion, 12-year concession contract to develop the IRIS2 constellation.

…Under the contract terms, the EU will contribute €6 billion, the consortium €4 billion, and ESA €550 million toward the total value. In addition to the consortium’s three leads, the key partners include Thales Alenia Space, OHB, Airbus Defence and Space, Telespazio, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Hisdesat, and Thales SIX.

As is usual for government projects, and especially for European ones, the time table for construction and launch is as slow as molasses. The first satellite won’t be launched until 2029, with the service not available until 2030. By that time there will be multiple such constellations in orbit, not just Starlink, offering services at rates far less than this system will likely offer.

This project is really nothing more than crony capitalism, creating a project to funnel government money to all these big European corporations. Fortunately, the project does demand they commit some of their own funds, which will at least act to keep them relatively honest.

Europe however would be better off leaving this to the companies entirely. If both SpaceX, OneWeb, and Amazon can build their internet constellations without government funds, why can’t these big European companies?

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