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European Space Agency

Press Release

Revealed: Europe's master plan for space technology

27 June 2003
 
ESA and its 16 national delegations have come together with the
European Commission and more than a hundred separate industries to
develop future road maps for space technology research and
development across the continent. 
 
The new 'European Space Technology Master Plan' consolidates the
overall process for space R&D and highlights 20 separate harmonised
technology areas. It was discussed at a round table at this year's Le
Bourget with key representatives from the EC, European industry and
ESA. 

"Europe has a yearly budget of approximately 400 million Euro for
space technology research and development. ESA provides half of this
budget, while the rest is going through national channels," said Hans
Kappler, ESA Director of Industrial Matters and Technology
Programmes. "It is very obvious this investment has to be harmonised
in order to avoid unnecessary duplications of activities and fill
strategic gaps." 

The French Minister of Research and New Technologies, Claudie
Haigneré, opened the debate after receiving the first copy of the
European Space Technology Master Plan (ESTMP, second release) from
Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director for Launchers and incoming ESA
Director General together with Antonio Rodota', ESA Director General,
and Hans Kappler. 

"It is very important that we can have this harmonisation and common
strategy defined at European level on technology; it is an essential
work between ESA, Member States, EC and Industry," said Claudie
Haigneré. "We have now an instrument which is helping us to work
efficiently and achieve concrete results at European level." 


The players and their views
 
"The ministerial conference in Edinburgh in November 2001 reaffirmed
ESA mandate to take up a coordination and harmonisation role,
involving all stakeholders, to establish the European technology
strategy and policy," recalled Kappler. 

The necessity to identify needs, to map European capabilities and to
define common European roadmaps for future developments were outlined
and an overall process established. 

The new ESTMP refers to all the institutional actors, describing
technology activities in Europe, strategies and funding approaches,
readiness level and relationship with European partners, and includes
a database of 1600 individual European technology activities. The
result: through a joint effort involving ESA, EC, the 16 ESA
delegations, more than 100 industries and about 500 professionals, 20
technology areas have been harmonised. 
 
Kappler said: "A good example of harmonisation is the area of solar
cells where we had to deal with the different dimensions, the needs,
the technology availability, the competitiveness, and the
harmonisation between different national players." 

There was a clear gap in the European market for multi-junction GaAS
solar cells before harmonisation, with the technology primarily
procured in the United States. Europe needed to invest in research to
gain a competitive edge in terms of performance, price and delivery.

Resources were concentrated on a common development programme, with
the aim of achieving a large-scale production capability. Today the
result of the harmonisation effort is that European multi-junction
solar cells are now used on the Herschel-Plank spacecraft. They are
also being selected for Astrium telecommunication satellites. 
 

Why the need for technology harmonisation?
 
Geir Hovmork, Chairman of ESA's Industry Policy Committee,
explained: "The national delegations finance their countries'
participation in ESA as well as national programmes and they have
limited finances available. In certain technology areas we find the
same kind of industries competing for the same limited market. It
became quite obvious both for industry as well as for governments
that we needed some kind of concerted approach to get the most out of
our budget." 

Alain Gaubert, Secretary General of Eurospace, recalled that
Eurospace has 55 European companies as members representing 90 per
cent of the European industry turnover; they have to face a very
serious crisis. The telecommunication market is going down. "There is
a manufacturing capability of 35 satellites per year while the total
number of orders will not be more than 12 this year, and we will be
happy if we just get half of these. In this situation, there is need
for a more coordinated approach in all R&D field and core
innovation." 
 
This point was agreed by Luc Tytgat, the EC's Head of Space Unit: "We
want to improve and increase the strength of Europe, and it is
absolutely necessary to implement a tool which helps to coordinate
this, so this harmonisation effort is definitively something we
welcome. We have in front of us an enlargement process where new
association countries needs visibility on what are the objectives of
the European Union and this type of instrument (i.e. the Master Plan)
is absolutely a significant, strategic and visible contribution to
our requirements to coordinate and harmonize technology activities in
Europe." 

"If we want to be ambitious in Europe and want to launch new space
programmes we will have to allocate more resources but at the same
time to make the best use of the money. We have to ensure that all
national research centres, the different institutes and even the
private sector try to build up together an independent approach for
the technology we need in Europe." 

It is part of the harmonisation process to find a balance between
maintaining a healthy competition and to concentrate the limited
resources available to support the Industry competitiveness. "This is
one of the real challenges in the harmonisation process," Kappler
emphasised. 

All speakers at the round table underlined the constructive and
positive spirit of this European initiative, the momentum acquired
and the already concrete results achieved. 


The step forward
 
The process of defining a European strategy and policy for space
technology R&D is highly dynamic with active feedback throughout its
various phases and frequent interaction with all parties involved.
The technology requirements and the ESTMP itself will be updated on a
yearly basis, the harmonisation being more a continuous process
addressing approximately eight technologies per year, with the
objective of revisiting the technology roadmaps on a three to four
year basis. 

"Technology is paving the way. The harmonisation approach and results
will continue to further expand toward industrial policy and space
programmes," Kappler concluded.

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