European Earth Observation Requirements Sign-Off Could Spur Extra Cash

BERLIN—European officials have signed off on high-level performance requirements for a future autonomous Earth observation program to address security requirements in a move that could lead to extra funding for a European Space Agency (ESA) precursor effort.

ESA members in November agreed to provide about €700 million ($807.2 million) to the European Resilience from Space-Earth Observation program that aims to pave the way for the European Union’s Earth Observation Government Service (EOGS). Somewhat unusually, ESA then kept the window open through this November for member states to pledge further funding to participate.

EOGS is envisioned as a security-focused constellation of different Earth observation systems with higher revisit rates and greater resolution than currently available nonmilitary systems.

With the high-level requirements now signed off on, the fundraising round for the already heavily committed program can kick off again in earnest.

“Now we are actively contacting different member states to see their interests,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters June 10 at the ILA Berlin Air Show here.

ESA has already kicked off the process to work with industry to get the program on the way, with the first bids for elements of the program already in. “We are proceeding,” Aschbacher said. Although it took several months to get European officials to finally sign off on the requirements plan, the ESA boss said the program is still running almost to plan.

The European Resilience from Space program also has a communications and navigation element for a combined funding across all three efforts of €1.3 billion, more than ESA initially sought. The program is also progressing much faster than earlier efforts, Aschbacher noted,

“It shows that Europe recognizes the sense of the urgency.”