BREMEN \u2013 Forget a moon mission or ever-sharper imagery of receding glaciers, getting a continent at war to spend more on space these days means turning the conversation to defence.<\/p>\n
Rather than skirt references to military matters, ministers from the European Space Agency\u2019s 23 member capitals will lean heavily into the need to protect orbital assets and deploy satellite-reconnaissance systems to ward off threats on Earth at a pledging summit in Bremen through Wednesday and Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Civilian science and observation projects will still make up the lion\u2019s share of the \u20ac22 billion that ESA aims to raise through at least 2028, but the flood of more national military spending offers opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefence budgets across Europe are expanding,\u201d ESA\u2019s Director General Josef Aschbacher said last month as he put the finishing touches to the budget draft to be finalised in the German city state. \u201cYet, overall space-related defence allocations remain modest in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as capitals are zooming towards NATO\u2019s 5% of GDP defence target, ESA estimates<\/a> governments spend just 0.07% of GDP on space.<\/p>\n That is beginning to shift. Germany, which recently overtook France as ESA\u2019s largest funder, has outlined<\/a> a \u20ac35 billion space-defence plan; even Canada, curiously a member of ESA since 1979, is upping<\/a> its contribution in Bremen.<\/p>\n In a breakthrough move, this time around ESA will seek \u20ac1 billion for preliminary work on a new reconnaissance satellite network, dubbed European Resilience from Space, to be funded jointly with the European Commission.<\/p>\n Because the agency\u2019s model incentivises contributions \u2013 countries get back contracts equivalent to what they pay under the so-called \u201cgeo-return\u201d system \u2013 the real play is getting aerospace majors to lobby their own governments.<\/p>\n \u201cSpace companies are increasingly pivoting towards defence-oriented solutions and applications, while European defence firms are actively integrating space capabilities,\u201d Aschbacher said in Brussels last month.<\/p>\n Those kinds of comments ahead of a budget meeting would have been unthinkable last time ESA convened ministers in Paris three years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil the ESA council meeting in 2022, climate was the dominant theme,\u201d Ludwig Moeller, director of the Vienna-based European Space Policy Institute, wrote<\/a> this week. \u201cSince then, security and defence have moved to the forefront, driven initially by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the 1970s, ESA has led on science programmes, teaming up with NASA and Russia\u2019s Roscosmos on new exploration initiatives, while also acting as the procurement arm for EU satellite projects. ESA also trains Europe\u2019s astronaut corps at a facility outside Cologne.<\/p>\n But Russia\u2019s all-out invasion of Ukraine prompted a discussion among member countries over whether to break the taboos around dealing with defence, given the agency\u2019s 1975 founding convention<\/a> commits it to \u201cstrengthen European cooperation\u201d but, critically, only \u201cfor exclusively peaceful purposes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n