The space race

Since the days of the Cold War, the exploration of space has been a quest for national pride and glory, but it is also big business.

The European Commission on 26 April published what it described as the "first ever European space policy", prepared jointly with Jean-Jacques Dordain, the director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA). Despite references to "the fragility of our planetary systems", the core of the strategy was about how to make the EU competitive in the space economy.

Lucrative satellite communications, imaging, delivery vehicle manufacture and related industries make the space industry worth €90 billion each year and growing at 7%.

"Europe cannot afford to lose out on securing the potential economic and strategic benefits of space for its citizens. Europe must make further efforts to preserve and improve its global competitive position," said the Commission.

Europe is already in the thick of the action. Last Friday (4 May) ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket was launched from French Guiana and set new standards for a commercial launch, taking into orbit two satellites with a combined weight of 9.4 tonnes.

The Astra 1L and Galaxy 17 satellites will deliver TV and other services to Europe and North America.

NASA was keeping a close eye on the launch because the Ariane programme will later this year begin supplying the International Space Station.

But the EU cannot be complacent about its competitive position. A second tier of space powers is emerging behind the established powers of Russia and the US.

Brazil, China, India, Japan and South Korea are developing space programmes to rival, or in some cases, surpass Europe’s capabilities.

Earlier this year India launched its first recoverable satellite, the first step towards a manned space programme that India hopes to launch in 2014.

Although India’s decision to have a manned space programme may be influenced by China and Russia’s renewed spending on space, the aim is to try out new technologies.

The Indian Space Research Organisation now has a budget of €600 million. It still pales in comparison to ESA’s budget of €3bn, but worldwide space spending by governments is now estimated to be worth more than €35bn each year. NASA accounts for only €11bn of that spending.

In the area of satellite navigation, a market the EU has decided to explore through its Galileo system, the EU faces competition not only from the US’ existing global positioning system, but also Russia’s Glonass and China’s Beidou systems.

The incentive is economic gain. According to the Commission, the market for navigation equipment and services is expected to reach €400bn by 2025.

In Galileo’s case, however, projected economic returns are still a distant prospect. The eight members of the Galileo consortium that were to have funded two-thirds of the project’s building costs - EADS, France’s Thales and Alcatel-Lucent, the UK’s Inmarsat, Italy’s Finmeccanica, Spain’s AENA and Hispasat, and German group Tele-Op - are expected to renege on their commitments today (10 May), the deadline for the signing of the project concession contract. The development will not come as a surprise to European Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, who in March mooted the possibility of increasing the share of public funding for the project.

Over the past week, it has become clear just how much the taxpayer might be asked to contribute. In a progress report on Galileo to be unveiled on 16 May, Barrot will declare the public-private partnership dead and press for an increased public contribution estimated at between €1.2-€2.4 billion.

Galileo is hardly a shining example of the type of inter-governmental co-operation required for Europe to lead the space race. The underlying problem with the investment-intensive project has tended to be over which countries get the biggest returns. Herein lies a cautionary tale: the industry may be big business, but member states will have to pull together if the EU is to have any credibility in space.

Since the days of the Cold War, the exploration of space has been a quest for national pride and glory, but it is also big business.