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NAPLES: Europe faces key decisions this week about its role in space, pondering plans for a new rocket and its involvement in the International Space Station at a time of money crunch.
Meeting in Naples on Tuesday and Wednesday, science ministers from the European Space Agency’s 20 member states will be asked to set a multi-year programme with billions of euros at stake for the highly successful space industry.
It will be the first top-level meeting by ESA in four years, a period whose achievements included the launch of the first satellites in Europe’s rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS).
But 2008 also marked the start of the financial crisis which now drags on many European economies, forcing governments almost everywhere to count the pennies.
In an interview with AFP, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said he was hoping members would back a three-year budget of 12 billion euros ($15 billion) but would be happy with ‘something around 10 billion euros.’
If so, it would mean a roughly stable budget compared with current levels, ‘but given the current situation, this is not small beer’, he said.
Topping the bill is a successor to ESA’s Ariane 5 heavy lifter, providing a rocket with nimbler launch options for the fast-changing satellite market.
Rival schemes are being pushed by France and Germany, which with Italy are the big hitters in ESA.
France is lobbying for an Ariane 6, which would require some four billion euros and lead — if all goes well — to a maiden flight in 2021.
‘We have to aim for an ultra-reliable, ultra-cheap launcher which does not need 120 million euros in subsidies each year,’ said Bruno Sido, a senator who heads a science and technology panel in France’s upper house of parliament.
Germany wants a less ambitious option, an Ariane 5 ME (for ‘Midlife Evolution’), that would be readier sooner at a putative cost of two billion euros.
Meeting in Naples on Tuesday and Wednesday, science ministers from the European Space Agency’s 20 member states will be asked to set a multi-year programme with billions of euros at stake for the highly successful space industry.
It will be the first top-level meeting by ESA in four years, a period whose achievements included the launch of the first satellites in Europe’s rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS).
But 2008 also marked the start of the financial crisis which now drags on many European economies, forcing governments almost everywhere to count the pennies.
In an interview with AFP, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said he was hoping members would back a three-year budget of 12 billion euros ($15 billion) but would be happy with ‘something around 10 billion euros.’
If so, it would mean a roughly stable budget compared with current levels, ‘but given the current situation, this is not small beer’, he said.
Topping the bill is a successor to ESA’s Ariane 5 heavy lifter, providing a rocket with nimbler launch options for the fast-changing satellite market.
Rival schemes are being pushed by France and Germany, which with Italy are the big hitters in ESA.
France is lobbying for an Ariane 6, which would require some four billion euros and lead — if all goes well — to a maiden flight in 2021.
‘We have to aim for an ultra-reliable, ultra-cheap launcher which does not need 120 million euros in subsidies each year,’ said Bruno Sido, a senator who heads a science and technology panel in France’s upper house of parliament.
Germany wants a less ambitious option, an Ariane 5 ME (for ‘Midlife Evolution’), that would be readier sooner at a putative cost of two billion euros.
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