The European Space Agency announced on November 6 the launch of a competition to develop commercial vehicles that will carry cargo to the International Space Station by 2028, a step towards the development of a crewed vehicle.

Meeting in Seville, Spain, as part of the European Space Summit, ESA member states approved a decision directing the agency to take the first step in NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transport Services (COTS) program, which involves the development of vehicles by European companies. to transport cargo to the ISS and potentially to future space stations.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, in his statement at the opening of the ESA Board of Directors meeting, said, “I want a small but very impressive step, a first step that will make much bigger goals possible.” “I propose a competition between innovative European companies to provide a space cargo return service to transport cargo to the International Space Station and return it to Earth by 2028.”

The details of the competition are not yet clear. In a press briefing following the ESA Board meeting, Aschbacher said he would create a small “tiger team” at the agency to launch the program. He envisioned an initial phase in which ESA would award training contracts worth a total of 75 million euros ($80 million) to two or three companies in the near term, using existing funding.

Funding for the next phases of the program will be allocated by ESA member states at their next triennial ministerial meeting, known as CM25, in 2025. He did not disclose what the program might cost.

Although ESA officials did not say so directly, the effort inspired NASA’s COTS program, which provides funds to companies to support the development of payload capabilities. When then-NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announced the COTS program in 2005, the agency anticipated spending $500 million (about $790 million) on the effort. Later in the program, NASA provided additional funding, resulting in SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft arriving at the ISS in 2012 and Orbital Sciences’ (now Northrop Grumman) Cygnus cargo spacecraft arriving at the ISS in 2013.

It’s unclear what level of interest the ESA competition will generate, but some European companies have already announced plans to build cargo spacecraft. Exploration, which raised €40.5 million in a Series A round in February, is working on a series of capsules to be sent to the ISS as early as 2027. Rocket Factory Augsburg, which is working on a small launch in September, announced that it is collaborating with Atmos Space Cargo and OHB to create a cargo vehicle.

Aschbacher said the commercial cargo program is a response to recommendations from a high-level advisory group the agency established to examine what it should do in human space exploration. This group proposed an ambitious European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches in a report published in March.

“We’re also going to design it so it’s not a dead end,” he said of the truck at the briefing. “This means that it is open and can be converted into a crew vehicle in the future if member states decide.” ” »

He suggested that ESA was not considering immediately switching to a crewed vehicle for funding reasons. According to him, ESA had not requested funds at the ministerial meeting a year ago, as these amounts were determined for a three-year period. “I request the first step towards creating a program proposal for CM25, which we will now prepare with our member state.”

€75 million for the first phase of the freight program will come from funds already allocated to the European Research Program ESA. He said the funding would be exempt from ESA’s geographical fallback policy, which requires member states to receive funding in proportion to what they provide to ESA, but the use of this policy for later stages of the program should be discussed.

Launch Policy

ESA members at the meeting also backed plans to bolster Europe’s formidable launch industry and open it up to competition. This includes what Aschbacher calls “stable operation” for the Ariane 6 and Vega C launch vehicles. This comes in the form of guaranteed financial support for a tranche of 27 Ariane 6 rockets and spending up to 340 million euros a year on the vehicle. ESA will also provide similar support for a set of 17 Vega C rockets worth up to €21 million per year.

“This is very good news as we have a stable future for medium and large launchers in Europe,” he said. “I can say that this is a huge relief, because we were not faced with this situation until a few days ago.”

In addition to supporting the launch vehicle, ESA said this would create a “challenge” or competition for launch services for an unspecified number of missions. These launches will be open to all European suppliers.

“We must change the way we supply the launch vehicles of the future,” he said, describing this as a “paradigm shift” towards a service approach in which ESA does not specify the launch vehicle and acts as the primary customer. ESA has not announced how many launches it will compete for in this effort or over what time period. Ashabcher said that in addition to the financing to support Ariane 6 and Vega C, the launch mission will be organized at the ministerial meeting to be held in 2025. Source