ArianeGroup calls for a “new deal” so that Europe remains sovereign in its access to space

Will the Old Continent run out of European rockets to carry out the planned missions? Will it relive the nightmare scenario which deprived it of access to space between July 2023 and July 2024, due to Ariane 6 delays and technical problems with the small Italian Vega C rocket? Since then, these two launchers have been operating and Europe has regained its autonomy.

But the risk of shortage is real. At the beginning of September, Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), sounded the alarm: “If we want to meet launch needs in 2030, we must make a decision fairly quickly in order to put in place the necessary capabilities. » A peak in launches is expected between 2029 and 2031, including the deployment of the sovereign space internet constellation Iris3 (348 satellites), that of the German army (40 satellites from 2029, 200 eventually), new satellites (12) for the European GPS Galileo and for Copernicus, the Earth observation infrastructure (6).

“Obviously, if these launches all happen at the same time in 2029, we won't have enough capacity. But that's not certain. Likewise, we do not necessarily benefit from a European preference,” reacts Christophe Bruneau, executive president of ArianeGroup, in an interview with Le Figaro.

An allusion to certain European countries which entrust their satellites to the American SpaceX.

Machine-translated from French