The agency’s European Resilience from Space scheme almost matched its full request and is meant to stitch together national space assets into a military-grade system of systems that delivers secure surveillance, communications, navigation, and climate-focused earth observation.
ESA director-general Josef Aschbacher said the outfit created in the 1970s for “peaceful purposes” had been handed “a clear defence and security mandate from its member states”.
He said this work made up only about five per cent of the budget, although it was “probably the beginning of more to come”.
The shift arrives as Beijing and Moscow flex in orbit, and Russia’s war in Ukraine shows how vital space-based communications, navigation, and observation systems have become for national defence.
The ERS proposal bagged roughly €1.2bn of its €1.35bn ask at a ministerial summit in Bremen and aims to raise another €250mn from European defence ministries in February. The sums convert to about €1.31bn, €1.47bn, and €0.27bn, respectively.
Aschbacher said it was ESA’s first openly military-grade capability, being developed with the European Commission, and that parts of the programme were oversubscribed, which meant “the mandate is crystal clear”, he said.
After two years of wrangling and two frantic days of late-stage negotiations, member states in Bremen agreed to raise ESA’s budget to €22.1bn, just €200mn short of what it wanted. ESA said this was a 32 per cent increase, or 17 per cent after inflation.
Germany, which has separately pledged €35bn for its military space ambitions by 2030, tightened its grip as ESA’s biggest funder and won a guarantee that a German astronaut will be the first European to fly on NASA’s Artemis moon missions. France held second place, Italy stayed close behind, and Spain nudged ahead of the UK into fourth.
Aschbacher said support from the 23 member states, including non-EU countries such as the UK, for nearly the entire budget request was unprecedented.
Science missions, including the hunt for extraterrestrial life, as well as commercial rocket and cargo development, also received strong backing.
Novaspace Principal Maxime Puteaux said ESA was “buying time to secure remaining funding” by staggering the fundraising for the military-grade project. He said the money already raised would allow work to start next year, although the plan was “still politically fragile”.
“The coming year will be decisive for whether Europe can truly stand up a sovereign, rapid-response intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance constellation”, he said.
Member states also threw cash at ESA’s European launcher challenge, which aims to build reusable micro and mini rockets that could eventually take over from the Ariane 6 heavy lifter.
They pledged more than double the requested sums as part of a €4.39bn transportation budget worth 20 per cent of the total.
Aschbacher’s push to support competitive commercial space firms also gained momentum as states agreed to allocate around €3.6bn to programmes that could be co-funded with industry.
The Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission is now set for launch in 2028 after NASA confirmed it will meet its commitment to provide launch services and key components.
ESA said it will start studies for a mission to Enceladus, Saturn’s icy moon that astrobiologists reckon is the best bet for finding signs of life beyond Earth.
