Europe’s role in the new space economy

When we talk about com­mer­cial space ser­vices, what are we refer­ring to ?

Ste­faan De Mey.  Today, space – or rather LEO (Low Earth Orbit) – is 90% com­mer­cial and 10% ins­ti­tu­tio­nal. The com­mer­cial part includes eve­ry­thing that concerns tele­com­mu­ni­ca­tions, navi­ga­tion, broad­cas­ting, and their appli­ca­tions. Beyond that there are also ins­ti­tu­tions who fund infra­struc­ture and satel­lite constel­la­tions. For example, the US Depart­ment of Defense has fun­ded the GPS and the Euro­pean Union fun­ded the Gali­leo navi­ga­tion sys­tem and Earth obser­va­tion satel­lites known as Coper­ni­cus. Even though they are govern­ment-fun­ded, these infra­struc­tures are used for com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions. As such, they represent a large volume of eco­no­mic acti­vi­ty – an exten­sion of the ter­res­trial eco­no­my in space, with com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions on the ground.

We are now at the stage of inte­gra­ting the Moon and human spa­ce­flight into that eco­no­my – some­thing which is star­ting to hap­pen with the arri­val of space tou­rism. At ESA, we also want science and research to be part of this eco­no­my, consi­de­ring that space pro­vides an envi­ron­ment for scien­ti­fic work. Micro­gra­vi­ty makes it pos­sible to pro­duce things in space not pos­sible on Earth, such as cer­tain types of crys­tals, spe­cial mate­rials, or arti­fi­cial organs. The anti­vi­ral Rem­de­si­vir, for ins­tance, was tes­ted in an “ICE Cube” (Inter­na­tio­nal Com­mer­cial Expe­ri­ments), a scien­ti­fic expe­riment contai­ned in a 10-cen­ti­metre cube sent on board the Inter­na­tio­nal Space Sta­tion (ISS).

Are large explo­ra­tion infra­struc­tures still fun­ded by ins­ti­tu­tions and agencies ?

This situa­tion is chan­ging. Over the past 20 years, govern­ments have inves­ted hea­vi­ly in the ISS. But now the pri­vate sec­tor is taking over. In the Uni­ted States, com­pa­nies are alrea­dy buil­ding modules that attach to the sta­tion and serve as bases for future pri­vate sta­tions. On a smal­ler scale, this is what the Euro­pean Space Agen­cy is pro­po­sing with public-pri­vate part­ner­ships in which the pri­vate part­ner pro­vides an all-in-one ser­vice, inclu­ding trans­port to the space sta­tion, ins­tal­la­tion of the modules (which are stan­dar­di­sed) and basic resources such as a broad­band link for data trans­mis­sion, power sup­ply or sample reco­ve­ry. It is a part­ner­ship that opens access to the ISS, opti­mises its ope­ra­tion and speeds up research.

Europe has basic infra­struc­ture for conduc­ting scien­ti­fic expe­ri­ments in space, but it is not ful­ly uti­li­sed thus pre­sen­ting a viable oppor­tu­ni­ty for a pri­vate part­ner to create a com­mer­cial ser­vice by offe­ring this infra­struc­ture to cus­to­mers when it is not being used by the agen­cy. That being said, indus­try part­ners can also build new infra­struc­ture to add to that.

Bar­to­lo­meo is an example of an ‘inte­gra­ted’ ser­vice that we have deve­lo­ped in part­ner­ship with Air­bus Defence and Space. The deve­lop­ment and ope­ra­tion of which are enti­re­ly run and fun­ded by indus­try, with ESA pro­vi­ding resources avai­lable such as trans­por­ta­tion, data exchange bet­ween Earth and space, and space on the Colum­bus module. This plat­form is docked to the Euro­pean Colum­bus module and labo­ra­to­ry out­side the ISS. It allows com­pa­nies and research centres to conduct expe­ri­ments and work in space in the form of pay­load modules, desi­gned to deve­lop new mate­rials, test tech­no­lo­gies, or observe Earth or outer space. In addi­tion, cus­to­mers but can approach Air­bus direct­ly – who pro­vide the end-to-end – ser­vice without going through ESA.

What does ESA expect from such com­mer­cial services ?

We have three objec­tives. First­ly, we want the scien­ti­fic com­mu­ni­ty to car­ry out work on our micro­gra­vi­ty plat­forms to faci­li­tate ter­res­trial research and to open up this tool to new com­mu­ni­ties such as indus­trial R&D. Second­ly, as an agen­cy, we need to conti­nue lear­ning how to pre­pare our plat­forms for future explo­ra­tion mis­sions to the Moon and then to Mars. It is impor­tant to men­tion that, in a com­mer­cial context, the agen­cy becomes one of many cus­to­mers, with other users (scien­tists and indus­try) pro­cu­ring the ser­vices they need direct­ly. Final­ly, we want to avoid a situa­tion where only Ame­ri­can com­pa­nies are present in low Earth orbit and our com­pa­nies and resear­chers must go through them. This is a new mar­ket where we want to be present by buil­ding on our expe­rience of the ISS.

Today, the cus­to­mer buys a turn­key, end-to-end ser­vice. NASA, for example, buys from Spa­ceX the trans­port of n tonnes or four astro­nauts to the sta­tion. The US cur­rent­ly domi­nates the trans­por­ta­tion mar­ket with reu­sable laun­chers. Europe needs to think about the next phases and pre­pare for the ‘post-Ariane’ era. We deve­lo­ped the Auto­ma­ted Trans­fer Vehicle laun­ched by Ariane 5, which has resup­plied the ISS five times and was one of our contri­bu­tions to the part­ner­ship, allo­wing us access to the sta­tion. To repo­si­tion our­selves in today’s space mar­ket, we need to inno­vate and deve­lop new services.

What ser­vices does ESA offer (or plan to offer)?

We cur­rent­ly offer three com­mer­cial ser­vices in low Earth orbit and are pre­pa­ring others for what we call the ‘future lunar eco­no­my’. In addi­tion to Bar­to­lo­meo, Space Appli­ca­tions Ser­vices SA mar­kets ICE Cubes. These cubes, with a stan­dard size of 10 cm on each side, contain various scien­ti­fic, tech­no­lo­gi­cal, or even artis­tic expe­ri­ments. Resear­chers have an Inter­net connec­tion to moni­tor and control them in real-time. ESA is res­pon­sible for trans­por­ting the cubes, ins­tal­ling them, and retur­ning them to Earth after four months. The Bio­reac­tor Express is also a turn­key ser­vice for expe­ri­ments conduc­ted for one year in the Kay­ser Ita­lia Kubik labo­ra­to­ry contai­ner. For the ‘post-ISS’ era, we are explo­ring the pos­si­bi­li­ties for indus­try to build and mar­ket a com­plete plat­form in LEO offe­ring science and habi­ta­tion func­tions as a ser­vice. In addi­tion, ESA is deve­lo­ping seve­ral pro­jects in the fra­me­work of the Moon explo­ra­tion pro­grammes, for example with the Ger­man satel­lite manu­fac­tu­rer OHB, which pro­vides a trans­port ser­vice to the lunar sur­face. On the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­tions side, we are cur­rent­ly expan­ding the capa­ci­ty of the Goon­hil­ly ground sta­tion in the UK to pro­vide com­mer­cial deep space com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices on the Moon and beyond. To com­ple­ment this ground sta­tion, we are pre­pa­ring a constel­la­tion of four satel­lites in lunar orbit. These Com­mer­cial Lunar Mis­sion Sup­port Ser­vices (CLMSS) will be used for future explo­ra­tion mis­sions to navi­gate around the Moon.