Space industry: Europe regains its independence

Faced with sig­ni­fic­antly increased inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tion over the last dec­ade and recent U‑turns by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, Europe is seek­ing to (re)gain its autonomy and com­pet­it­ive­ness in the space industry, des­pite tempta­tions at nation­al level for coun­tries to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing their own cap­ab­il­it­ies. Lionel Suchet, inter­im CEO of the French Nation­al Centre for Space Stud­ies (CNES), ana­lyses the chal­lenges of the cur­rent situ­ation for France and the continent.

Lionel Suchet. In coun­tries that pion­eered space explor­a­tion, such as the United States, Rus­sia and France, space agen­cies developed around two highly stra­tegic and, as such, state-run pil­lars of activ­ity: research and defence. These applic­a­tions remain highly rel­ev­ant today. Research needs space resources more than ever. Take the mod­el­ling of cli­mate change, for example, where satel­lite obser­va­tion plays a cent­ral role. In the mil­it­ary arena, space has not only become an essen­tial sup­port for the armed forces but is also emer­ging as a new theatre of conflict.

Over the past dec­ade or so, a third pil­lar has developed along­side the first two, respond­ing not to insti­tu­tion­al logic but to that of the open eco­nomy. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of Earth obser­va­tion mis­sions for sci­entif­ic pur­poses and the digit­al revolu­tion, which has made it pos­sible to pro­cess satel­lite data on a massive scale, have paved the way for a wide range of applic­a­tions, attract­ing new private investors will­ing to take great­er risks.

This is a very excit­ing time for the entire sec­tor. But it is also marked by increas­ingly fierce inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tion and some ten­sions among European coun­tries to devel­op their own space cap­ab­il­it­ies. Europe’s pri­or­ity is there­fore to strengthen its cohe­sion and sov­er­eignty in the mil­it­ary arena, main­tain its level of excel­lence in research, and build real com­pet­it­ive­ness at the con­tin­ent­al level in the com­mer­cial arena.

It’s import­ant to keep in mind that France is by far the lead­ing space nation in Europe. Our space industry is extremely well-developed and highly skilled. France – and through it, Europe – has a strong indus­tri­al base thanks the invest­ments made by suc­cess­ive gov­ern­ments since 1961. Along­side estab­lished indus­tri­al play­ers, the French start-up eco­sys­tem is prov­ing to be very dynam­ic. CNES has sup­por­ted its devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly through France 2030. €1.3bn has been alloc­ated, and is now almost fully com­mit­ted, to sup­port innov­at­ive initiatives.

But it would be point­less to pit the two mod­els against each oth­er, as they bene­fit from each oth­er. The start-up eco­sys­tem is now enter­ing a phase of sta­bil­isa­tion, which will inev­it­ably lead to some con­sol­id­a­tion. As for the large groups, although they are cur­rently exper­i­en­cing dif­fi­culties due to the col­lapse of the mar­ket for private geo­sta­tion­ary satel­lites res­ult­ing from com­pet­i­tion from Starlink in the United States, they under­stand they will have to make sig­ni­fic­ant efforts to remain com­pet­it­ive. They have already taken steps in this dir­ec­tion: major restruc­tur­ing plans have been announced, inspired in part by the prac­tices of smal­ler com­pan­ies that are begin­ning to grow, and joint pro­jects with start-ups are devel­op­ing. And as you point out, they are look­ing into oppor­tun­it­ies to con­sol­id­ate their activ­it­ies, but no decision has yet been made on either the prin­ciple or the approach.

France has taken a sig­ni­fic­ant lead in this field in Europe. We have been work­ing for years to strengthen our cap­ab­il­it­ies, which we make avail­able to oth­er European coun­tries. We have state-of-the-art obser­va­tion satel­lites, includ­ing CSO‑3, launched in March by Ariane 6, two next-gen­er­a­tion encryp­ted tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions satel­lites thanks to the Syra­cuse IV pro­gramme, and space-based elec­tro­mag­net­ic listen­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies, tech­no­lo­gies that France is the only European coun­try to have mastered.

The top pri­or­ity at the European level seems to me to be polit­ic­al: we must con­vince all Mem­ber States of the urgent need for genu­ine European autonomy when it comes to defence, some­thing France has always advoc­ated. On the tech­nic­al front, one vital issue was to regain autonom­ous access to space. The suc­cess­ful launches of Ariane 6 in July 2024 and March 2025, and the return to flight of Vega‑C at the end of 2024, are there­fore excel­lent news.

A major devel­op­ment is finally under­way in the field of dir­ect action in space: it is regret­table, but this threat is very real. Today, we know that for­eign powers are cap­able of send­ing small man­oeuv­rable satel­lites to spy on, jam sig­nals or threaten satel­lites belong­ing to oth­er coun­tries. We must there­fore equip ourselves with the means to char­ac­ter­ise these threats and even respond to poten­tial attacks. We are already work­ing on this with the YODA demon­strat­or pro­gramme, two patrol satel­lites that will mon­it­or the envir­on­ment of our space sys­tems in geo­sta­tion­ary orbit and pave the way for the launch of oper­a­tion­al cap­ab­il­it­ies by 2030.

Space has long been seen, quite rightly, as a mod­el for European integ­ra­tion, and the European Space Agency (ESA), foun­ded in 1975, has played a key role in the devel­op­ment of Europe’s space pro­gramme. Geo­graph­ic­al return proved very effect­ive at a time when everything had to be built from scratch. But today it is becom­ing coun­ter­pro­duct­ive, as it amounts to duplic­at­ing European forces at a time when the indus­tri­al fab­ric on the con­tin­ent is already very dense and com­pet­i­tion with the United States, China and India is growing.

It is time to aim for great­er European com­pet­it­ive­ness and there­fore to move to a dif­fer­ent mode of oper­a­tion. But which one? We are call­ing for the European Com­mis­sion itself to fin­ance and man­age major space pro­grammes. Since 2009, it has had ad hoc leg­al author­ity, and its use of industry is based on com­pet­i­tion rather than geo­graph­ic­al return. I won’t hide the fact that France is fairly isol­ated with­in ESA on this sub­ject, which is under­stand­able giv­en its prom­in­ent pos­i­tion. But we are con­vinced that this is the way for­ward, and it seems that our views are being heard at Com­mis­sion level: the European Union’s space budget has been increas­ing stead­ily since 2009, and the new European Com­mis­sion­er for Defence and Space, Andri­us Kubili­us, has again men­tioned a threefold increase in this amount for the next fin­an­cial framework.

This is indeed anoth­er pit­fall that must be avoided, as ESA has developed con­sid­er­able expert­ise in the man­age­ment of large pro­grammes. But it is entirely pos­sible that the EU could draw on ESA’s expert­ise to mon­it­or and devel­op major pro­grammes at the oper­a­tion­al level, while retain­ing its own rules on gov­ernance and pro­cure­ment. This would not, of course, pre­vent ESA from con­tinu­ing to fund and man­age cer­tain spe­cif­ic programmes…

It is time to aim for great­er European com­pet­it­ive­ness and there­fore to move to a dif­fer­ent mode of operation

To be hon­est, I am hope­ful that things will move in this dir­ec­tion. Intern­al dis­cus­sions with­in ESA and its dis­cus­sions with Mem­ber States show that it is begin­ning to accept the idea of becom­ing the exec­ut­ive arm of a European policy led by the EU. This is noth­ing to be ashamed of: CNES, the exec­ut­ive arm of French space policy, is proof of this.

The United States is a long-stand­ing and val­ued part­ner of France and Europe, par­tic­u­larly on issues relat­ing to the envir­on­ment and explor­a­tion. The old­est meas­ure­ment taken from space, sea level, is the res­ult of a his­tor­ic col­lab­or­a­tion between CNES and NASA’s Jet Propul­sion Labor­at­ory. We are also involved in major manned and unmanned explor­a­tion pro­grammes – the lat­ter being of great interest to our sci­entif­ic com­munity – to the Moon and Mars: Artemis, but also the US mis­sion to return samples from Mars, Mars Sample Return, and Exo­Mars, a European mis­sion to explore the sur­face of the Red Plan­et with a rover, which was to be launched by a US launch vehicle.

At this stage, we have not received any offi­cial mes­sage from NASA ques­tion­ing these part­ner­ships. But the cur­rent sig­nals are indeed cata­stroph­ic, both in terms of rhet­or­ic and in terms of lay­offs at NASA, JPL² and NOAA³. We must there­fore remain on high alert: it is not a ques­tion of Europe tak­ing the ini­ti­at­ive to halt col­lab­or­a­tions, but of pre­par­ing con­tin­gency plans in case the worst happens.

I don’t believe it is in Europe’s interest to aim for com­plete autonomy in these areas. While total sov­er­eignty is neces­sary in the field of defence, it is not neces­sary in the fields of research and exploration.

Our val­ues on this point are com­pletely dif­fer­ent from those of the United States, for whom explor­a­tion is syn­onym­ous with nation­al con­quest. Europe, for its part, has always pro­moted manned space­flight and explor­a­tion of the sol­ar sys­tem as a tool for inter­na­tion­al cooper­a­tion. If the US policy change is con­firmed, oth­er coun­tries could be affected, with which we could con­sider cooper­at­ing: I am think­ing in par­tic­u­lar of Japan and India, whose space cap­ab­il­it­ies are devel­op­ing rap­idly, par­tic­u­larly in low Earth orbit.

This situ­ation also makes a case for the European Uni­on to take the lead on major pro­grammes rather than ESA, which by its very nature lacks polit­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity and is nat­ur­ally guided solely by the indus­tri­al interests of its Mem­ber States.

This is an emin­ently polit­ic­al ques­tion. We have the tech­nic­al cap­ab­il­it­ies to do so, provided we have the neces­sary fin­an­cial resources: we have already launched ini­ti­at­ives to pro­duce cargo ships that auto­mat­ic­ally resup­ply space sta­tions, and it is entirely feas­ible to devel­op these for manned flights.

With regard to the pro­longed human pres­ence on the Moon, which is cur­rently being con­sidered, it is import­ant to bear in mind that estab­lish­ing a lun­ar base raises the ques­tion of land own­er­ship, which is not a neut­ral issue from either a leg­al or polit­ic­al point of view. In the future, the rules for using resources in situ and the legis­la­tion to be applied on anoth­er celes­ti­al body, which are new issues for human­ity, are likely to be dis­cussed only among those who will be liv­ing there.

We were very shocked by the dis­missal of trus­ted con­tacts with­in NASA. We are obvi­ously ready to wel­come them if they wish to come.

Interview by Anne Orliac