Rocket Revolution threatens to undo years of European space unity

When he spoke to aerospace executives and innovators at Toulouse, the French president Emmanuel Macron had a combative tone.

“We have been fighting for months, saying that European sovereignty is European Unity. He told the gathering of December in France’s aerospace hub that some partners had decided to compete. “So, take note that we will push hard to be the very best.”

Macron’s words launched a race to find Europe’s future rocket manufacturer, capable of launching the most important and sensitive missions into outer space. There are signs of fragmentation as the space sector opens to competition. This is a result of 50 years’ worth of European collaboration.

Pierre Lionnet is the director of research for Eurospace. He warned that “everyone has lost their final goal, which is an European program.”

ArianeGroup, a French company and its predecessors have developed Europe’s Ariane heavy launchers for decades. Ariane was the dominant launcher for commercial launches to geostationary orbit, 36,000km above Earth.

However, delays in delivering Ariane 6, problems with the smaller Vega-C produced by Italy’s Avio and the breakdown of collaboration on Russia’s Soyuz medium-lift rocket have left Europe without its own launch capability. Instead the bloc has had to turn to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, even for sensitive missions.
Josef Aschbacher has called the lack of launch capabilities a crisis for Europe’s sovereignty in space.

Aschbacher has long advocated a model similar to that of the US space agency Nasa. In this model, Europe would no longer purchase rocket systems and instead purchase flight services from European commercial launches companies.

His wish was granted in November last year. ESA member countries decided to launch a contest for the next-generation rockets. Initially, for an intermediate launcher. Then for Ariane 6’s successor. ArianeGroup owned by Airbus and Safran in France will no longer be the prime contractor.

Germany, the home of some of Europe’s best rocket startups, demanded competition. France paid this price for German support on an EUR1bn European package of support for Ariane 6 The Ariane 6’s disposable nature would make it difficult for the rocket to compete with SpaceX Falcon 9’s reusable technology.

Toni Tolker Nielsen, ESA’s acting director for space transportation, said “Ariane 6 was supposed to be able compete on the market without any subsidies.” “It didn’t deliver, and now member countries want us to change our system.”

Avio, an Italian company, withdrew the small Vega launcher it had purchased from Arianespace (the subsidiary of ArianeGroup) as part of the agreement on competition.

Avio has objected ArianeGroup’s plan to target Vega’s market with MaiaSpace – its small rocket startup.

Giulio Ranzno, Avio’s CEO, asked: “How can a marketing and sales organisation be building a product that competes with ours?” If Ariane will be your competitor, then you do not want to give it information about your rocket.

Officials of the ESA, which is independent from the EU, but also acts as their procurement agency and includes non EU countries like the UK and Switzerland, said that the goal was not to replace existing companies such as ArianeGroup and Avio, but rather to encourage them to become more efficient.

“We wanted them to receive an electroshock.” We did it. Tolker Nielsen said, “We have changed the paradigm for access to space.”

Morgan Stanley predicts that the space economy will be worth $1tn in 2040. Launch capability is crucial: Europe has around 20 start-ups that are developing micro-launchers, and many have plans for larger rockets.
Tolker Nielsen said, “We must avoid it becoming a race between nations.” “It’s not going to easy.”

Due to the competition, ESA must also review its Georeturn principle. This is where member states receive contracts in proportion to their investment into a rocket program. Critics claim that this leads to a non-competitive market, favoring large investors over smaller ones.

Lionnet said that removing the system would be risky. He said that program managers can know their budget and suppliers with georeturn. He added that it would be difficult for government officials, who “wouldn’t know if they were required to invest €20mn of €100mn”.

Aschbacher believes that allowing launch providers to select their own suppliers and ensuring fair returns for member states will lower mission costs while stimulating the commercial space sector in Europe.

Nasa contracts have not only fueled the growth of Elon Musk’s SpaceX but also its reusable rockets, which dramatically reduced launch costs and created a vibrant US industry.
The director-general of ESA said, “We studied the US model to learn from its mistakes.” “We’ll give the industry freedom to make it work the way they see fit.”

But not everyone is convinced. Lori Garver said that the strategic shift made by Nasa could be hard to duplicate. She said, “We were in a unique position with the richest man on the planet. Our strategy was aligned to what he wanted anyway.”

The European rockets are going to have to compete with SpaceX not only with the Falcon 9 but also with its Starship which will be able to launch payloads up to 150 tons into orbit once it becomes operational.

The most important thing is that Europe may struggle to ensure enough demand to reduce costs. In comparison to the US, Europe’s projects such as the Galileo Navigation Service, the planned IRIS2 Broadband constellation, or scientific missions are small. Lionnet said that “we don’t have the same demand for launcher system as Americans.”

Euroconsult, a space consultancy, estimates that European governments will spend less than one-third of what the US does on space each year in 2022. This is either through ESA or national programmes.

For this to work, the member states must agree to pooling their launch requirements, even though other competitors may be cheaper. Tolker Nielsen said that ESA had tried this for many years, but “not succeeded”.

Some European rocket start-ups are happy about the competition. Others, however, insist that investors need to be convinced by more firm signals. Ezequiel Sánchez, the executive president of Spanish rocket company PLD, said that ESA needs to behave like a real anchor client. He argued that ESA should pursue “a full launch contract for missions”.

However, pooling the demand could be pointless when national interests are paramount.

“Instead, we should try to find the best solution for all of us. . . “Some see this as a chance to build more for themselves,” said Eurospace Lionnet. “There is no national solution that will allow Europe to launch its own rockets.” “Interdependency is the norm.”