Discussing ESA's priorities at #IAC2022

Today at #IAC2022 I spoke with my colleagues on the Heads of Agencies panel about ESA's top priorities in the coming months. The overarching priority, from which all others can be derived, comes from our convention: to foster the space sector in order to bring the benefits of space and its applications to citizens in Europe and worldwide. This priority is a common thread through all of our activities, programmes, and partnerships. It's embedded in our day-to-day.

The ESA Council at Ministerial level, #CM22, will be a time for the critical decisions needed to continue to support this priority. ESA’s Member States, Associate States and Cooperating States must together strengthen Europe’s space sector and ensure it continues to serve European citizens, yes, but also all humankind.

Accordingly, the package we are putting on the table at CM22 is guided by three principles:

(1) Leadership - Maintain existing leadership and expand to strategic areas with commercial growth potential; (2) Responsibility - Strong focus on sustainability, in space and on Earth; and (3) Autonomy - Increasing European resilience, independence and competitiveness.

Core features of the CM22 package are:

·?????Climate change & sustainability solutions: supporting climate policy action from space, first active space debris removal

·?????Commercialisation: supporting activities across the entire package and the preparation of new growth markets (Moonlight, ARTES, AI, In-Orbit Servicing)

And why should our finance ministers invest in this package? Because it means an excellent investment of European taxpayer money. Caring for a green future has massive economic implications. According to Nature, if humankind fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the levels designated in the Paris Agreement, the economic cost could range from $150 trillion to as much as $792 trillion by 2100. If space permits us to reduce this cost by even only a couple percentage points, the investments made would be more than earned back.

According to ESPI, the total ?nancial bene?t to Europe from its space activities is around €53.5 bn per year. 95% of the 40 million weather observations processed for forecasting each day are supplied by satellites, and errors in one-day weather forecasts have been reduced by 64% thanks to satellites. One third of the European economy is weather sensitive.

Market volumes for space are increasing. In 2021, in the upstream market, there was a growth of 9% to € 29.6 bn worldwide, and in the significantly larger downstream sector a growth of 1% to € 250 bn. It should be noted, however, that Europe suffered a decrease of 1% in the downstream sector.

Public investments in space were on the rise in 2021 as well worldwide by 4% (leading to € 78.2 bn) and in Europe even by 7% (leading to € 11.9 bn). Europe does better than the rest of the world, and we surely hope this trend continues at CM22 and beyond!

The next big priority is forming the building blocks of the Accelerators, for which we have secured substantial political support through the Matosinhos Manifesto and the Space Summit. From the beginning, our Council has been regularly updated on and involved in the progress of the Accelerators (reports, workshops).

We have also been working very hard on the seeds which will be put on the table at our upcoming Ministerial Council. Our priority is the Space for Green Earth Accelerator, and we are focused on a very early delivery of the Green Information Factory with the Austrian demonstrator. Concerning the Rapid and Resilient Crisis Response Accelerator, we have received promising feedback from the Request for Information issued for the new Civil Security from Space programme. Furthermore, we are working closely with the European Commission on finalising our Joint Understanding on the PROTECT Accelerator and on Space Traffic Management.

The year 2023 is our year to start building the Accelerators in a concrete way – bringing in funding and in-kind contributions and creating the right environment for people to make those contributions and establishing a governance and stakeholder engagement plan for the Accelerators in the lead-up to the 2023 Space Summit.

These are the looming priorities that my workforce from across the Agency are working on...I will keep you updated on the progress.