Tag: European Space Agency

Europe once again delays test flights of its Callisto 1st stage hopper

11:05 am

Callisto's basic design
Callisto’s basic design

First proposed in 2015 as Europe’s answer to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the first test flights of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Callisto grasshopper-type reusable test prototype, as shown on the right, has once again been delayed, now from 2026 to 2027.

On Friday, CNES published a call seeking a partner to provide mechanical operations and procedures support ahead of the Callisto flight-test campaign, including contributions to operations user manuals, drafting mechanical operation procedures, and conducting detailed studies of mechanical interfaces between the vehicle and the ground segment. In the preamble to the scope of work, the notice states that the campaign will be carried out from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana in 2027. It will include an integration phase followed by eight test flights and two demonstration flights, all to be completed over a period of eight months.

The project, in which Japan’s space agency JAXA is participating, had an initial budget of $100 million, and originally planned to do its first hops in 2020. Instead, ESA spent a dozen years making powerpoint presentations, while SpaceX flew hundreds of operational flights with its Falcon 9, for profit.

Worse, this program is not attached to any rocket. It is a dead end. ESA and JAXA might get some useful engineering data from it, but it will belong to no one, and it is unclear anyone will care. At this moment it appears several private companies in Europe will have flown their own new rockets before Callisto even gets off the ground, and the data from those real rocket launches will be much more useful to them down the road.

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Italian rocket company Avio commits $469 million to expand operations

8:59 am

The Italian rocket company Avio, which owns the Vega-C rocket, today announced that is has approved a $469 million fund to expand its manufacturing capabilities, including building a production facility in the United States.

Announced on 12 September, the capital raise is part of a new ten-year business plan targeting an average annual growth rate of about 10% in turnover and more than 15% in core profit (EBITDA). This growth will be driven by a higher Vega C launch cadence, the introduction of Vega E, continued participation in the Ariane 6 programme, and the construction of a new defence production facility in the United States, which is expected to be completed by 2028.

The management of Vega-C had previously been controlled by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial arm, Arianespace, which had owned and operated all of Europe’s rockets. ESA however is eliminating that commercial arm, shifting from the government-run model to the capitalism model, whereby it simply acts as a customer buying services from the private sector.

As part of that shift, Avio is in the process of taking back its Vega-C from Arianespace. Beginning next year it will be marketing the rocket directly to customers. This major investment reflects this change. The company is now free to pursue profits wherever it can find them, and it appears it wishes to market itself aggressively to American satellite companies as well as its defense industry.

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France startup wins contract to build Starlink competitor

9:58 am

France’s space agency CNES has awarded a €31 million contract to France startup Univity to build a demo satellite to demonstrate internet and phone-to-satellite capabilities, as part a longer term plan to build a constellation that can compete with both SpaceX’s Starlink and AST SpaceMobile constellation, both already launched and in operation.

Founded in 2022 under the name Constellation Technologies & Operations, UNIVITY aims to develop a very low Earth orbit constellation to provide global high-speed, low-latency internet services. A prototype of the company’s regenerative 5G mmWave payload was part of a 23 June SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission, hosted aboard the D-Orbit SpaceBound ION mission. The company expects to launch a pair of prototype satellites in 2027, followed by the deployment of its full constellation between 2028 and 2030.

This deal likely puts the final nail in the coffin of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) own government IRIS satellite constellation, which has been delayed, is expected to be very expensive and take a long time to get launched, and has already faced disinterest from many partners in ESA. That France is now going it alone likely ends any chance that IRIS will be funded.

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An interesting look at why the British government decided to eliminate its space agency

8:55 am

Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten
Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten

Link here. The article depends almost entirely on anonymous sources, but unlike most propaganda news stories which typically use such sources to push one pro-government perspective, this article includes sources from a range of viewpoints.

According to those sources who wanted the UK Space Agency (UKSA) gone, the agency was eliminated last month because it simply had not been very effective in building up Great Britain’s space industry. First, it was too focused on doing what the European Space Agency wanted.

The U.K. has had a different approach to space than its European counterparts, such as Germany, France and Italy, the source explained. Historically, the U.K. has dedicated most of its resources to the European Space Agency (ESA) rather than pursuing a multipronged approach involving a strong domestic space program and bilateral partnerships independent of ESA. Therefore, over 80% of UKSA’s budget has been placed into ESA. The perception in the government was that UKSA was acting more in line with ESA’s wishes than with the U.K. government’s needs, the source added.

Second, it not only did nothing to alleviate the red tape hampering the industry, its existence added a layer that made things worse. Numerous studies and hearings before Parliament in the past five years have bewailed the situation. The inability of the rocket companies to get launch licenses — for years — proved their correctness.

Meanwhile, the anonymous sources opposing the agency’s elimination argued that without it Great Britain will be in a weaker position negotiating with its ESA partners as well as projecting itself internationally in the space field.
» Read more

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Two launches today less than 20 minutes apart

6:06 pm

Arianespace and ULA both successfully completed launches today, less less than 20 minutes apart.

First Arianespace placed in orbit a new European weather satellite, its Ariane-6 lifting off from French Guiana in South America on its second commercial launch and third launch overall.

Next, ULA launched a Space Force national security classified payload, its Vulcan rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. This was the Vulcan’s third launch, and the first in 2025. It is also its first commercial launch, and the first since the military certified the rocket for its use. It was also the first since a nozzle fell off a strap-on booster during its last launch in October 2024. On this launch it used four boosters, all of which functioned as planned.

For Arianespace (and Europe) this was its fourth launch in 2025 so it does not make the leader board for the 2025 launch race. Similarly, this was ULA’s third this year, so it also does not make the leader board.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

98 SpaceX (with another Starlink launch scheduled for later today)
43 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 98 to 76.

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Hera photographs two main belt asteroids on its way to Didymos/Dimorphos

10:12 am

Asteroid Otero as seen by Hera
Click for original image.

The science team for the European Space Agency’s Hera asteroid probe, on its way to the binary asteroid Didymos/Dimorphos in late 2026, has successfully taken images of two different main belt asteroids, demonstrating once again that its camera and pointing capabilities are operating as expected.

The image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced, shows all the observations of Otero, the first asteroid observed, as it moved upward in the field of view. The result was that vertical line of dots.

On 11 May 2025, as Hera cruised through the main asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Mars, the spacecraft turned its attention toward Otero, a rare A-type asteroid discovered almost 100 years ago.

From a distance of approximately three million kilometres, Otero appeared as a moving point of light – easily mistaken for a star if not for its subtle motion across the background sky. Hera captured images of Otero using its Asteroid Framing Camera – a navigational and scientific instrument that will be used to guide the spacecraft during its approach to Didymos next year.

The second observation of asteroid Kellyday was even less spectacular visually, but because that asteroid was forty times fainter than Otero, the observation was more challenging, and thus its success more significant.

Hera will arrive at the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroid in 2026, where it will make close-up observations of the changes the asteroids have undergone following Dart’s impact of Dimorphos in 2022. Subsequent ground- and space-based observations have been extensive and on-going, but the close-up view will be ground-breaking.

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Thales Alenia ships the orbit insertion module for the Mars sample return mission

8:59 am

Though the entire project remains in limbo at NASA and might be cancelled, the European aerospace company Thales Alenia this week completed construction of the orbit insertion module for the Mars sample return mission that will place the orbiter — also built by European companies — in Mars orbit and will eventually bring the samples back to Earth.

On 28 July, Thales Alenia Space announced that the module had passed its test campaign with “excellent results.” According to the update, the company had packed and shipped the Orbit Insertion Module from its Turin facilities to Airbus in Stevenage a few days earlier. The delivery marks a key milestone in the development of the Mars Return Orbiter.

The broader Earth Return Orbiter project passed a key milestone in July 2024 with the completion of the Platform Critical Design Review. This review confirmed the performance, quality, and reliability of the mission’s systems. With its successful conclusion, Airbus advanced to full spacecraft development, including the integration and testing of its various components, among them the Orbit Insertion Module.

Under the project’s present very complex design, NASA is supposed to provide the ascent rocket and capsule to bring the samples to Europe’s return orbiter. At the moment it is unclear who will build this, or even if it will ever get built. Thus, Europe might be building a very expensive Mars orbiter with no clear mission.

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Europe and SpaceX complete two launches late yesterday

10:01 am

Both Europe and SpaceX successfully completed launches in the early morning hours today.

First Arianespace, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial arm, used Avio’s Vega-C rocket lifting off from French Guiana to put five satellites into orbit, including four high resolution Earth observation satellites and one climate satellite. This was only the third launch for Arianespace in 2025, two of which were of the Vega-C.

Next, SpaceX placed 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

92 SpaceX
37 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 92 to 66, with another Starlink launch scheduled for tonight.

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Dassault lobbies ESA to fund its Vortex reusable mini-shuttle

9:51 am

Dassault's proposed Vortex mini-shuttle
Dassault’s proposed Vortex mini-shuttle. Click for original.

The French aerospace company Dassault is now lobbying the European Space Agency to help finance its proposed Vortex reusable mini-shuttle, comparable in concept to Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft.

The company had first announced this project in June.

While the June announcement included few details, a 25 June hearing of the French National Assembly’s Committee on National Defence and the Armed Forces revealed that the mission is expected to be launched in 2027 aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. The hearing also disclosed that the demonstration mission has a total budget of €70 million, with Dassault providing more than half of the funding and the remainder coming from the French government.

Dassault is now attempting to get more funding from ESA. In June it had signed an agreement with ESA to partner on building a demonstrator, but it was not clear that agreement included funding. It certainly did not include funding for the full scale operational mini-shuttle.

Overall, the structure of funding and the design of the project is good, and demonstrates again Europe’s sharp shift to the capitalism model in the past two years. Dassault will design, build, and (most importantly) own the shuttle, allowing it to market it to many customers. It is also committing a significant amount of its own funds to the project. The funding from France and possibly ESA appears mostly that of a customer buying the services of this product from the company.

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Proposed North Sea offshore launch platform gets ESA okay

10:38 am

Launch platforms proposed for North Sea
Launch platforms proposed for North Sea

The proposed North Sea offshore launch platform of the startup Eurospaceport has now signed an agreement with the European Space Agency to support a test launch of a suborbital test rocket by Polish rocket startup SpaceForest.

The map to the right shows approximately where Eurospaceport’s launch platform will be located for this launch. The map also shows the locations of the two proposed spaceports in the United Kingdom, as well as a second German-based launch platform, Offshore Spaceport Alliance, based out of Bremen.

The SpaceForest launch is targeting a 2026 launch, with the ESA contract covering some of the expenses. As it will be suborbital, the rocket will likely not cross over any nearby habitable land.

The Offshore Spaceport was first proposed in 2020, and has received financial support from the German government, and announced earlier this year that it would be ready to host launches by September 2025. As of yet no launches have been scheduled.

Both of these launch platforms will need to travel farther to the west in the North Sea to provide any orbital rockets a path north that will not fly over other nations. Even so, launches for both will likely be limited to polar orbits, making their value less appealing to rocket companies.

At the same time, their proximity to Europe and the ability of the launch platforms to dock in Europe gives them other advantages that will be of interest to the German rocket startups.

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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 Callisto 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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