ROOM
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Astronautics
stimulate research and development and
integrate innovative solutions into ESA space
exploration missions.
ESA’s role in these commercial partnerships is
to act as a business partner in developing new
services or products on a non-exchange of funds
principle, where the agency provides technical
support, and reviews, business development
support, co-funds technology development, and
grant access to ESA facilities.
The first results are already in: ESA has
just signed the first commercial partnership
agreement with Space Applications Services
(SpaceApps) to provide quick, easy and low-cost
access to the Space Station in less than a year
using its International Commercial Experiment
Cubes service.
‘ICE Cubes’ could allow access to a large number
of users, including educational institutions, small
and medium-sized enterprises, and research and
development organisations.
Boosting business
European space industries have traditionally
carried out most of their activities for space
and defence purposes within a governmental
procurement frame and their business footprint
is just starting to emerge in non-space market
sectors, such as materials, pharmaceuticals, bio-
engineering, nanotechnology, oil and gas.
ESA Member States are getting more sensitive to
the current ecosystem of ‘Space 4.0’, transitioning
from a government-run laboratory in orbit to
an increasingly commercially driven human
spaceflight economy.
ESA is promoting brainstorming activities with
space and non-space actors in order to agree on
potential ways forward and is seeking to establish
marketable commercial space exploration
initiatives and to boost the spill-over effects in
terms of socio-economic growth, job creation and
added welfare. The goal is to make the European
market place attractive for newcomers.
A key action includes the ‘Space for Inspiration’
event to communicate opportunities for
integrating space exploration with society at large
and create opportunities for new actors to engage
in space exploration, either as a contractor, user
or partner of ESA.
In addition, it aims to create partnerships via
Innovation Exchanges by bringing together in
splinter sessions people from different fields and
backgrounds to elaborate synergies and common
activities driven by the goal to develop synergetic
solutions addressing both space exploration and
global societal challenges. ESA is also partnering
with business accelerators and maintains a
network of brokers throughout Europe. Industry
days are helping commercial partners to
consolidate the industrial consortium.
New opportunities
Around 60 ideas were submitted in response to
the first call for commercial partnerships, and
nearly 10 have been selected to enter a pilot phase
to demonstrate their programmatic and technical
feasibility and to consolidate the business plan and
partnership model.
This initiative, fully supported by ESA Member
States, is currently in its inception. Next year’s
maturation of the pilot phases will have to
demonstrate the willingness of all partners to
share risks as well as benefits, before entering into
a full implementation phase.
Each partnership idea is evaluated by an ESA
panel of experts, following consultation meetings
where companies have been invited to present
their proposal. Those consultation meetings were
paramount for ESA to better assess the viability of
the partnerships.
The range of ideas is broad and includes
applications, products and services related to
utilisation of the International Space Station, post-
ISS exploitation, lunar exploration and ground
analogue tests.
Each partnership offers opportunities for
additional partners, interested users and potential
customers to participate in the partnership
development and benefit from the final products
and services.
The Bartolomeo
external research
platform to be attached to
the Columbus module on
the ISS in late 2018 could
facilitate access to the
orbital laboratory for
commercial users.
The primary objective
of a European version of
Dream Chaser will be to
provide affordable,
reliable and flexible
space services for
autonomous European
access to LEO.
Fostering open
technology
innovation will
boost future
ESA missions
to the Moon
and Mars
