The European Space Agency (ESA) has initiated a significant step towards establishing a European counterpart to SpaceX by selecting two companies to develop commercial cargo services for the International Space Station (ISS).
On Wednesday, ESA announced contracts for The Exploration Company, a Franco-German start-up, and Thales Alenia Space, a Franco-Italian space systems supplier. Each company will receive initial funding of €25 million to create a commercially viable service to low Earth orbit by 2028. A subsequent funding round, expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of euros, will be decided at the next ESA ministerial meeting in 2025.
This initiative marks ESA's first concrete move to emulate the strategy pioneered by NASA nearly two decades ago. NASA's approach of awarding development funds followed by fixed-price service contracts was instrumental in the success of Elon Musk's SpaceX, now a leading provider of launch, cargo, and crew services to the ISS.
Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s director-general, emphasised that the contracts reflect ESA’s modernisation efforts to meet the demands of the evolving space economy. The agency hopes these vehicles could eventually be adapted for human spaceflight or lunar missions.
Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, highlighted the potential for these vehicles to either support crewed transport to low Earth orbit or bring cargo back from the Lunar Gateway, a space station being developed by NASA and its partners to orbit the Moon.
ESA's strategy mirrors NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program launched in 2006, although the funding available from ESA is significantly smaller. NASA initially awarded over $400 million to two companies, including SpaceX, and agreed to $3.4 billion in fixed-price contracts within two years. In contrast, ESA has allocated just €75 million for this first phase.
A third bidder, MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of French-owned ArianeGroup, was initially set to receive a portion of this funding but had its proposal rejected. The unallocated funds may either be directed to MaiaSpace if it revises its design or to the two existing winners for enhancing their vehicles.
Prior to ESA’s cargo vehicle challenge, both The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space were already working on their own cargo vehicle designs. TEC, which has raised about $70 million since its inception in 2021, views the contract as a "milestone achievement" for its Nyx vehicle and crucial for NASA certification. Thales Alenia Space emphasised the evolving space exploration landscape and aims to set new standards in innovation and efficiency while reinforcing its role in the burgeoning space economy.
