Written evidence submitted by the Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA016)
History and status
1.1 The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation. With its predecessors, in which the United Kingdom was a founding Member State, it has almost 50 years of experience. The Agency has grown from 10 Member States in 1975 to currently 20 Member States, of which 18 (the exceptions being Switzerland and Norway) are also Member States of the European Union. Between them, those 18 account for 98 per cent of the EU’s GNP. The Agency operates under the Convention which was opened for signature in 1975.
1.2 ESA has cooperation agreements with all current EU Member States not members of ESA, except for Bulgaria, with whom negotiations are in progress. Canada has a long-standing Cooperation Agreement and takes part in several ESA programmes.
Resources and instruments
1.3 The budget for ESA programmes in 2013 is €3.4 billion; programmes managed for other European institutional partners will amount to an additional €0.8 billion. Total expenditure will therefore be €4.2 billion. Slide 1 in Appendix 1 shows a breakdown of programme income and institutional partner income according to the source.[1]
1.4 The Agency’s programmes are funded in two main ways. Mandatory activities (15%) are funded by all Member States at GNP level The budgets for Mandatory activities are determined by a decision taken very 3-5 years on the Level of Resources. This provides a degree of medium term planning and allows decisions to be taken on missions within the Science Programme to allow for a suitable mix of cornerstone missions and those of a more moderate size. I also provides reassurance to all sub-sectors in the scientific community that their needs will be catered for in the programme.
1.5 Optional programmes (85%) are funded on a voluntary basis, programme per programme (currently around 60 different programmes), according to the interest of the Member States (the number of participating States in a programme ranges from 1 to 20). This system provides substantial flexibility, both in devising programmes and in allowing each Member State to set its own priorities. For example, the UK has historically chosen to focus its investment in primarily in commercial and scientific satellite development. Programme decisions are taken only by the Participating States and Council decided recently to introduce weighted voting according to the level of contribution, for certain types of decision.
1.6 For Optional activities, a financial envelope is agreed at the time of subscription. This commits Participating States to complete the programme, subject to costs remaining within the envelope plus a contingency margin. With some satellite developments taking a decade, followed by an exploitation period of similar duration, such commitments are essential. The Optional programmes also ensure that, from the Member State point of view, the Agency focuses carefully on devising attractive programmes that fully meet Member State needs.
1.7 In the area of telecommunications, almost all programmes now entail partnerships with industry and/or satellite operators, under which Participating States fund and bear the risks of technology development and the operator takes the risk to use these new technologies to open new markets. The complexity which this adds to the programme is more than offset by both the additional resources brought by the third party and the strong commercial focus. In addition, the involvement of an operator in a successful R&D mission provides a strong opportunity for the manufacturing to build a lasting supplier-customer relationship. UK companies such as Astrium, Avanti and Inmarsat have already participated in such public-private partnerships – Hylas launched in 2011 and Alphasat which will be launched in July this year.
1.8 A unique aspect of ESA, and the bedrock of the achievements described later in this evidence, is that Article VII of its Convention requires that it should elaborate and apply an industrial policy designed in particular to:
“a. meet the requirements of the European space programme and the coordinated national space programmes in a cost-effective manner;
b. improve the world-wide competitiveness of European industry by maintaining and developing space technology and by encouraging the rationalisation and development of an industrial structure appropriate to market requirements, making use in the first place of the existing industrial potential of all Member States;
c. ensure that all Member States participate in an equitable manner, having regard to their financial contribution, in implementing the European space programme and in the associated development of space technology; in particular the Agency shall, for the execution of its programmes, grant preference to the fullest extent possible to industry in all Member States (…);
d. exploit the advantages of free competitive bidding in all cases, except where this would be incompatible with other defined objectives of industrial policy.”
Organisation and centres
1.9 ESA’s technical centres contain expertise which aims to be world leading in their field and is recognised as such. This expertise provides the management capability to support industry in delivering scientific satellites of unparalleled complexity and commercial satellites capable of competing in world markets. ESA is an R&D programme management organisation first and foremost, where most international organisations are administrative by nature. Information on ESA’s sites, including Harwell, is given in Appendix 2.
Achievements
1.10 The Agency’s achievements derive from its strengths. ESA has designed, tested, launched and operated over 70 satellites It currently has 17 scientific satellites in operation. Slides 2 and 3 in Appendix 1 show recent examples of the impact which the results of these satellites can have in the general media, worldwide; their impacts in scientific media are too numerous to list.[2]
1.11 Through ESA, the Member States have created and maintained a highly competitive industrial sector. The share of commercial sales and exports in the European total space manufacturing turnover has grown from 28% in 1991 to 45% in 2010. ESA has been responsible for the development of the Ariane 1, Ariane 2/3, Ariane 4, Ariane 5 and Vega launchers. The Ariane family celebrated their 200th launch in February 2011 and are the world reference, taking some 50 per cent of the available global market for commercial satellite launches.
1.12 Europe’s share in the worldwide commercial telecom market has grown in the past decade from 19% to 33%. In the geostationary satellite market, Europe has improved its worldwide market share: in satellite platforms from 20% in the 1992-2001 period to 28% in the 2002-2011 period; in payloads from 22% to 32% for the same periods. All non-geostationary communication satellite constellations (Iridium NEXT, O3b Networks and Globalstar 2nd Generation) have been captured by European industry which will deliver most of the associated equipment value (2/3 on Globalstar 2, more than 50% on Iridium NEXT). The global satellite industry itself posted average annual growth of 9 % for the period 2006 through 2011, and despite the financial crisis a growth of 5% in both 2010 and 2011.
1.13 Every billion US $ spent in by the US government gives rise to about 1.5 tonnes of institutional satellites in space and 1.25 tonnes of commercial satellites manufactured in the US. For Europe (i.e. ESA, EU and national programme expenditure) the corresponding figures are 3.5 tonnes and 4 tonnes respectively.
Relative weaknesses
1.14 The ESA Council at Ministerial Level meets only when required, normally every 3-4 years. Their discussions focus on major policy changes within the Agency and major new programmes. Member States are in most cases represented by the minister responsible for research. In the past, this restricted the Agency’s ability to embed space systems into the development and delivery of European and national policies which would benefit from utilising space and to influence the development of policies which affect the sector, such as international trade policy and frequency allocation.
1.15 In contrast, the EU addresses a wide range of issues through its Councils, which generally meet several times per year, allowing political momentum to be built. From the mid-1990s onwards, the Agency has therefore sought to cooperate with the EU at all levels. This cooperation has borne fruit in many areas, the most prominent of which are the joint developments in the areas of Global Navigation Satellite Systems – Galileo and EGNOS – and Earth monitoring – GMES/Copernicus, and the decisions of the EU to fund these as operational systems.
2.1 As noted above, the relationship between the EU and ESA has grown substantially during the past decades, based on a symbiotic relationship between ESA’s technical and managerial capacities and the EU’s political strengths and requirements for space infrastructure to meet its needs for space services. At a political level, a turning point can be traced back to the “common resolution,” similarly worded resolutions passed in both Councils in 1998, initiated by the UK EU Presidency. This was followed up in 2000 by a further common resolution on a European Space Strategy, when the EU Research Council and the ESA Council at Ministerial Level met together in Brussels, under the chairmanship of the UK, chairing the ESA, and France, chairing the EU.
2.2 The first significant cooperation at a programmatic level was in the area of navigation, with EGNOS followed by the Galileo In-Orbit Validation Programme. The latter was approved in the EU Transport Council, signalling the success in convincing ministers of the value of space beyond ESA’s research constituency.
2.3 A broader context was given to the cooperation through the Framework Agreement between the EU and ESA, which came into force in May 2004 and has twice been extended, most recently to 2016. Among other things, that Agreement has given rise to the European Space Policy and to political orientations and resolutions in the 8 meetings of the Space Council to date.
2.4 However, there has been a marked change in the partnership since the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union came into force in December 2009. The EU’s space-related activities over the next 7 year Multiannual Financial Framework period will substantially be determined by the regulations proposed by the European Commission on the Global Navigation Satellite System, Horizon 2020 and (one anticipates) Copernicus. These regulations will also determine ESA’s role in these EU programmes, working with a delegation on navigation and in a cooperation for Copernicus. Both Galileo and Copernicus now move into the exploitation phase and the funds available for space science and technology under Horizon 2020, as compared to those available in the Seventh Framework Programme, are substantially increased, emphasising the need for effective coordination.
2.5 Accordingly, the ESA DG proposed to the ESA Council at Ministerial Level to institute a process to determine the evolution of ESA, reflecting the overall evolution of European governance and aiming at making ESA the space agency that best serves Europe. This process would be aimed at increasing the value of ESA for its Member States and Europe. He saw the core elements of this evolution, based on partnerships, as: an appropriate relationship with the EU and its institutions; a growing number of Member States in ESA; a need to take into account the interests of larger and smaller contributors; and a revised relationship with the increasingly mature industrial space sector.
2.6 The ministers accepted this proposal and at their meeting in Naples, Italy on 21 November 2012 approved the political declaration ‘Towards the European Space Agency that Best Serves Europe’. In this they
“[REQUESTED] this further evolution of ESA to take full benefit of and encompass:
(i) ESA’s capabilities and achievements based on an intergovernmental framework offering to its Member States an efficient framework of cooperation for implementing their competence in space in pooling their objectives and resources;
(ii) the EU competence in space, in accommodating the consequences in ESA’s operation and thus providing efficient programme management of EU funded programmes under EU rules;
with the objective of providing the most appropriate framework in which to develop the space capabilities and resources at European level for Research and Development.”
The Council also
“[MANDATED] in view of preparing the decisions to be taken by ESA Member States on the further evolution of ESA:
2.7 In parallel to the preparation of the ESA Ministerial Council, the European Commission prepared a communication on ‘Establishing appropriate relations between the EU and the European Space Agency’ in which it set out its proposals for analysing possible scenarios for this relationship and doing this in close cooperation with ESA. More recently, the European Commission released a communication on EU Space Industrial Policy. An effective industrial policy is clearly important to the space sector; it is closely linked to both the funding sources and to the evolution of the relationship between ESA and the EU.
2.8 This process of evaluating scenarios is ongoing with the objective of enabling the ESA DG to bring forward proposals to the next meeting of the ESA Council at Ministerial Level, expected to take place in 2014. Such proposals would be discussed with the Member States Delegations during the 6-8 months of preparations for that Council meeting. The optimum scenario would be one which most effectively maintains the strengths of the ESA system while significantly improving the efficiency of its relationship with the EU. The options being studied will be measured against this goal.
3.1 The EU Multiannual Financial Framework and the proposed EU Horizon 2020 programme have not yet completed the approval processes in the Council and the Parliament of the EU and thus have not yet been brought into force. Nevertheless, the Select Committee is addressing one of the most difficult issues faced by ESA and the EU: how to achieve complementarity between the content of the two European level technology programmes, while respecting the decision making processes in each organisation and capitalising on the strengths of each. The ESA DG and his directors are engaged in detailed discussions with the European Commission on this and the ESA DG will start by assessing the lessons learned from past cooperation under the Seventh Framework Programme.
4.1 As a matter of principle, the ESA DG does not comment on the actions or performance of one of ESA’s Member States.
5.1 Space is an investment designed to achieve many different benefits, over many timescales. Return on investment can take the form of immediate contracts, the development of an industrial capability able to secure commercial sales, the growth of a services sector in satellite applications and value-added services and the strengthening of a nation’s scientific base. Measuring all of these benefits and relating them back to the original investment in an intellectually coherent way is a challenge faced by all nations which invest in space.
5.2 ESA and its Member States take many actions specifically designed to maximise the potential for economic return, most notably the PPPs described above. A recent addition to these has to been to introduce a number of Business Incubation Centres designed to bridge the gap between an idea and getting a technology transfer project off the ground, and assisting its development into a viable business. One such centre is being established in Harwell, managed by STFC Innovations Limited.
5.3 The Agency pursues an industrial policy whose goals are set out in the response to question 1 above. One facet of this is that the contracts secured by the industries in each Member State should be proportionate to that Member State’s contributions, after taking account of the internal costs of the Agency and taking into account weighting factors relating to the technological content of the work concerned. This is expressed as a return coefficient where the ideal is a return of 1.
5.4 However, the majority of ESA’s programme contracts are awarded in competition, or as follow-on contracts to earlier work assigned after competition. Competition is designed to ensure value for money, world class scientific missions, efficient satellite-based services and, through the engagement of PPPs, effective global competitors in Europe.
5.5 Where, as result of competition alone, the performance of the industries of a Member State falls below a certain minimum, that Member State is entitled to special measures designed both to improve the short term statistical return and the long term ability of its industries to compete. The statistics on which the return coefficients are based are also discontinued periodically. The statistics are planned to be discontinued at the end of 2014, when the UK’s return is forecast to be within the acceptable range, as it was when the statistics were last discontinued in 1999.
6.1 In 2008, ESA Member States began the Space Situational Awareness Programme, in which the UK is one of the Participating States. Under “Space Situational Awareness” are gathered the activities aimed at protecting ground and space infrastructure from the potential threats from space:
• Cosmic radiations that can influence the functioning and the reliability of space and ground systems and services and endanger property or human health, collectively known as Space Weather;
• Near Earth Objects which can potentially impact the Earth and, depending on their size and hitting point, produce considerable damage
• Space Debris that pose the threat of collisions with active spacecraft, including potentially catastrophic collisions, and which can be monitored through Surveillance and Tracking (SST) activities.
6.2 Space debris is considered to consist of a wide range of man-made objects (decommissioned satellites, spent upper stages, launch adaptors, lens covers , fragment generated from explosions or collisions in orbit dust from solid rocket motors firings, droplets of coolant liquids…). For example, on 22 February 2012, a tank of an Ariane launcher hit the ground in Brazil. According to the analysis made by the ESA Debris Office, this debris related to a launch of an Ariane 4 that took place in 1997. There are some 120 upper stages in orbit, some 20 of them will re-enter Earth in the next 10 years. The crew of the International Space Station has had to take shelter in a Soyuz capsule three times since the beginning in 1998, and debris avoidance manoeuvres are made regularly; debris pose a serious threat to the ISS - in particular those between 1-10 cm which cannot be detected and which are too strong for the protection shield.
6.3 ESA has been active in R&D and operations related to space debris since the mid-1980s and has built up operational knowledge through its Space Debris Office at ESOC with an expertise that is unique in Europe. The Office provides operational support to ESA missions on collision avoidance, contingencies, post-mission disposal, and re-entry forecasts with world-class accuracy based on US-provided data. It also provides information to the authorities in ESA Member States and the EU authorities.
6.4 More recently, in order to strengthen and focus debris mitigation measures, the ESA DG has established in 2011 a set of activities, named the clean space initiative, which prepare technical solutions for environmental issues. Among these investigations are also the analysis for active debris removal concepts. The clean space initiative is thus working closely together with agencies as well as industry to safeguard the space environment and at the same time foster European competitiveness in the field of related new and innovative technologies.
6.5 Within the Space Situational Awareness Preparatory Programme, activities have centred around
• establishing mission, customer and system requirements
• identifying suitable system architectures to meet these
• establishing pilot data centres for Space Weather and NEOs.
For space debris, mission and customer requirements have been established by the EU, combining civil and security requirements into a single document which has been approved by the Political and Security Committee.
April 2013
Appendix 2
ESA’s organisation and centres
A2.1 ESA has 8 operational sites: Headquarters (FR), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) (NL), European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) (DE), European Space Research Institute (ESRIN) (IT), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) (ES), European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (DE), Redu (BE), and the latest, Harwell (UK). In addition ESA owns the launch and production facilities and has teams deployed in Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou (FR Guiana) and in the CNES site in Toulouse. It also has offices in Brussels, Washington, Houston and Moscow and a network of ground stations distributed over 4 continents. The first five named sites are categorised as establishments. ESA employs about 2200 staff and a similar number of contractors in support capacities.
A2.3 ESA’s most recently established site is Harwell. First opened in 2009, ESA will further develop the Harwell Centre through the following undertakings made in the MoU signed between ESA and UK in November 2012:
[1] Appendix 1 not printed.
[2] Appendix 1 not printed.