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The European Space Agency has fired the starting gun on its bid to create a European version of SpaceX, choosing two companies on Wednesday to develop commercial cargo services to the International Space Station.
The Exploration Company, a Franco-German start-up founded just three years ago, and Thales Alenia Space, a Franco-Italian space systems supplier, beat several other candidates to win initial funding of €25mn each to build a commercially credible service to low earth orbit by 2028. A second round of funding, expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of euros, will be decided at the next ESA ministerial meeting in 2025.
The move marks ESA’s first concrete step in emulating a strategy pioneered by US space agency Nasa almost 20 years ago, in which it will buy flight services from commercial companies rather than commissioning the development of rockets and spacecraft.
Nasa’s strategy of awarding development funds followed by fixed-price service contracts was crucial to the success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, today one of the world’s most reliable suppliers of launch, cargo and crew services to the ISS.
“The signature of the low Earth orbit cargo return service contracts shows how ESA has modernised to meet the demands of the next era of the space economy,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s director-general who since his appointment has pushed for a more commercial approach to procurement to help nurture Europe’s space sector and bring down costs.
ESA hopes the vehicles might even be adapted to human space flight or lunar missions.
“We want to have evolution capabilities which will either allow crewed transport to low earth orbit or to bring cargo back from the Lunar Gateway [the space station being developed by Nasa and partners which will orbit the Moon],” said Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, in a recent interview with the Financial Times.
The strategy is based on Nasa’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, launched in 2006. However, the sums being made available by ESA are far smaller than those that drove the success of SpaceX. Nasa initially awarded more than $400mn to two companies, including SpaceX, to develop a vehicle capable of resupply services to the ISS, and within two years had agreed $3.4bn in fixed-price contracts.
ESA has just €75mn available for this first phase. The €25mn not allocated in the announcement on Wednesday was due to be awarded to a third bidder, believed to be MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of French-owned ArianeGroup.
However, its initial proposal was rejected and either it will revise its design or the balance will go to the two existing winners for additional proposals to enhance their vehicles’ capabilities, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
Even before ESA launched the cargo vehicle challenge last December both The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space were working on their own cargo vehicle designs.
TEC, which has raised about $70mn in funding since it was founded in 2021, said the contract was “a milestone achievement” for its Nyx vehicle. ESA had become an anchor client, which was important for certification by Nasa, it said.
Thales Alenia Space said the cargo programme came “at a time when the space exploration landscape is evolving rapidly, with a blend of institutional and commercial players embarking on missions to explore low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars”. It aimed to “raise the bar in terms of innovation and efficiency while reinforcing the company’s role as a major player in the upcoming space economy”.
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
