Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The European Space Agency will have to abandon one of the core principles driving multilateral investment in its space programmes or risk losing EU support, says the head of France’s space agency, CNES.
Philippe Baptiste, who took over at CNES in 2021, said the policy of awarding contracts to countries in proportion to their investments in individual programmes meant Europe would struggle to develop competitive sovereign launch capability in future.
The process, known as georeturn, often compels prime contractors to award contracts by nationality rather than competitiveness.
It has been blamed for delays and budget-busting costs on Europe’s newest heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, which is due to fly for the first time this summer — four years later than planned and substantially over budget.
“You don’t know how many warehouses there are for Ariane 6 and how many companies are working all over Europe on the same product,” he said. “This is much too expensive. We have to get rid of that. That is what we are pushing here in France.”
As Europe increased funding for space, it would require a space agency that could implement programmes more efficiently, he said. “Georeturn is poison. Either ESA is able to change, or if it does not change . . . the European Commission at some point will do without,” he added.
ESA’s director-general Josef Aschbacher rejected Baptiste’s criticism.
“With the system we have in place, we have created some of the most successful programmes worldwide,” he told the Financial Times. “Galileo and the science programmes are top of class, despite having to manage 22 member states and georeturn.
“Why would you change a winning horse in a race which is getting faster?”
The clash comes as the ESA prepares proposals for a reform of georeturn, as a result of the decision last year to introduce a competitive procurement process for Europe’s launch requirements.
The decision was driven by Germany’s frustration with the Ariane 6 programme, and has sparked a fierce reaction in France, which sees it as a threat to its decades-long dominance of Europe’s rocket manufacturing.
Several ESA officials said France’s push to end georeturn was no more than an attempt to strengthen the EU’s hold over the agency and by implication France’s influence over programmes.
Founded in 1975, ESA acts as the EU’s procurement agency for space systems, but it is an intergovernmental organisation whose members include non-EU countries such as the UK, Canada and Switzerland.
EU procurement may be open to competition, said one veteran ESA official, but the final decisions were “just politics . . . So without georeturn, decisions are more influenceable”.
“If you want to deviate from this principle it’s the end of ESA,” said another senior ESA official. “It’s really pointing towards ending ESA as an intergovernmental organisation and letting the EU take over.”
The debate highlights the delicate path Aschbacher has to tread as he attempts to hold together European collaboration on space while introducing greater competition and efficiency into programmes.
Other countries were pushing to “keep ESA as a very strong intergovernmental organisation”, Aschbacher said. “The majority of countries [are] very satisfied with the way it works.”
ESA officials believe the policy can be adapted without sacrificing the principle of guaranteeing a fair return on investment. In essence, the industry will be free to choose its own suppliers, and governments will only then be asked to contribute funding proportionate to the contracts awarded to their industry.
“This is still georeturn but in reverse,” the ESA official said.
The ESA is also expected to reduce the number of programmes to which georeturn applies. The agency will present proposals for reforms in June.
Germany insisted on the competition in launch as a quid pro quo for agreeing to a near €1bn subsidy for Ariane 6 flights between 2027 and 2030. France, Italy and Germany agreed to the injection, which will enable Ariane 6 to compete on price with SpaceX’s reusable heavy-lift Falcon 9 rocket.
Unlike Falcon, Ariane is not reusable, a decision now widely regarded to have rendered the rocket uncompetitive even before it makes its first flight.
Ariane 6 has been designed to be a flexible but expendable heavy-lift rocket that in its most powerful version will be able to carry satellite payloads of up to 20,600kg into space.
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.
