A consortium space agency of 13 European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK (founding nations) together with Austria and Norway, and associate member Finland) to promote space research, technology, and applications for exclusively peaceful purposes; Canada also participates in some programmes. It was created in 1975 as an amalgamation of two predecessors - the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) and the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO). Its headquarters is in Paris, where programme plans originate. Projects are managed from the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, which is also the centre for space technology development. Orbital spacecraft operations are managed by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Launches use the Ariane family of vehicles from a launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana.
The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1975, is an inter-governmental organization dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 17 member states. ESA has a staff (excluding sub-contractors and national space agencies) of about 1,900 with an annual budget of about €3 billion in 2006.
ESA's spaceport is the Centre Spatial Guyanais (Guyana Space Centre) in Kourou, French Guiana, a site chosen because it is close to the equator from which commercially important orbits are easier to access. During the 1990s ESA gained the position of market leader in commercial space launches and in recent years ESA has established itself as a major player in space exploration.
ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, and the European Astronauts Centre (PACI), that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany.
History and goals
Mission
Since the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union's "iron curtain," space agencies around the world had to refocus and revise their visions and goals. In an interview with JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain ESA's Director General (since 2003) outlined briefly the European Space Agency's mission:
Today space activities are pursued for the benefit of citizens, and citizens are asking for a better quality of life on earth. They want greater security and economic wealth, but they also want to pursue their dreams, to increase their knowledge, and they want younger people to be attracted to the pursuit of science and technology.
I think that space can do all of this: it can produce a higher quality of life, better security, more economic wealth, and also fulfil our citizens' dreams and thirst for knowledge, and attract the young generation. This is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. Although the booming recovering process of the 1950s made it possible for Western European countries to invest into research and specifically into space related activities, Western European scientists realised solely national projects would not be able to compete with the two major superpowers. In 1958, only months after the Sputnik shock, Edoardo Amaldi and Pierre Auger, two prominent members of the Western European scientific community at that time, met to discuss the foundation of a common Western European space agency.
The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned to develop a launch system ELDO (European Launch Development Organisation) and the precursor of the European Space Agency, and ESRO (European Space Research Organisation) that was established on March 20, 1964 per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.
The ESRO's successor organisation ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre, based in Noordwijk, the Netherlands) is still a part of ESA, though ESA itself is a much bigger organisation today. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, a space probe monitoring gamma-ray emissions in the universe.
From its beginnings to a leading institution
Beginning in the 1970s, when the space race between the US and the Soviet Union had tuned down and space budgets were cut dramatically in both superpowers, ESA established itself as a forerunner in space exploration. Hipparcos, a star-mapping mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses and the Hubble Space Telescope were all jointly carried out with NASA. Recent scientific missions in cooperation with NASA include the Cassini-Huygens space probe, to which ESA contributed by building the Titan landing module Huygens. The next two developments of the Ariane rocket were intermediate stages in the development of a more advanced launch system, the Ariane 4, which operated between 1988 and 2003 and did establish ESA as the world leader in commercial space launches in the 1990s. Its successor, the Ariane 5 rocket, has established itself within the heavily competitive commercial space launch market since its first successful flight in 1997 and prospectively will reach 25 successful launches by 2006.
The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like NASA, JAXA, and Roscosmos, one of the major participants in scientific space research. A recent press issue thus stated:
Russia is ESA's first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. There is a framework agreement between ESA and the government of the Russian Federation on cooperation and partnership in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and cooperation is already under way in two different areas of launcher activity that will bring benefits to both partners.
Most notable for its new self-confidence are ESA's own recent successful missions Smart-1, a probe testing cutting-edge new space propulsion technology, the Mars Express mission as well as the development of the Ariane 5 rocket.
Further goals and aims
ESA has ambitious space plans that may be divided into three large categories. tests and developments of new propulsion systems), try to find ways to reduce costs for their rocket fleet while enhancing their capacities, honour its commitments regarding the ISS and engage in further space exploration like the Venus Express mission that was launched in late 2005. The second category has many parallels to NASA's plans and constitutes of astronomy-space missions such as the Planck Surveyor studying the cosmic microwave background (2008), the Herschel space observatory (2008), Corot that will be a milestone in the search for extrasolar planets and is due to launch in 2007 or the Darwin interferometer.
While the projects described above are more or less similar in their structure and aim as NASA's and other space agencies' plans, the ESA's Mars project is different. Until 2005 ExoMars was planned to be a joint mission between NASA and ESA, however obstacles such as American technology law that prohibits sharing of classified space technology information led to ESA deciding to go for it alone.
For a comprehensive history of ESA see (large pdfs)
Member countries, budget and organisations
Member countries and strategic partners
ESA comprises the national space organisations and other entities of these seventeen countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. By virtue of this accord, Canadian Space Agency takes part in ESA's deliberative bodies and decision-making and also in ESA's programmes and activities. ESA has entered into a major joint venture with Russia Since China started to invest more money into space activities, the Chinese Space Agency has sought international partnerships. ESA is, beside the Russian Space Agency, one of its most important partners.
Budget
Overall budget
The budget of ESA was announced as €2.977 billion for 2005 (a ten percent increase on 2004) and for 2006 is estimated at €2.904 billion. A large part of ESA's budget is invested in ESA's launch vehicles that are currently the most expensive part of ESA's activities (Twenty-two percent of the budget goes into launch vehicles;
Comparison with NASA
In comparison with NASA's budget of sixteen billion dollars (€13 billion), ESA's budget of €3 billion superficially looks considerably less. However, in order to make a true comparison on funding levels between the U.S. and those European nations involved with the ESA, more factors have to be considered:
ESA member states fund separate national space agencies as well: Unlike the US, European nations maintain both national space programs and contribute to ESA's space activities. Most of those national space agencies have considerable budgets provided for scientific space research and other space related programs as well as joint projects with ESA or other international programs. For instance, the Italian Space Agency (ASI) has a national budget for 2005 of about €700 million, of which half is contributed to ESA and the other half is spent on its national or other programs. The German Aerospace Center (German acronym DLR) has a separate budget for 2005 of €700 million The French space program in 2005 was funded with €1.7 billion, of which €685 million are contributed to ESA and the rest of appr. Taking these non-ESA space allocated funds of only those 3 major European countries together would amount to €2 billion. Would all ESA memberstates national space agencies be added together with ESA's budget would more than double ESA's €3 billion budget. A single Space Shuttle launch costs more than $1 billion and during the last decades up to one-third of NASA's budget had to be invested in the Shuttle to keep it flying (for 2005, $5 billion are allocated for the Space Shuttle constituting 30% of the budget). For a true comparison between the budgets and Europe's and the US' focus in spaceflight this difference should be taken into account, that is for all non-human space related activities ESA memberstates and the US are not very far apart in terms of budgets (NASA's budget without the ISS, Space Shuttle and other human spaceflight related activity is about $9 billion, ESA and ESA memberstates allocate about €4.5-5 billion (about $6 billion) to non-human spaceflight related space projects.) With NASA's commitment to the Vision for Space Exploration its focus on human spaceflight and budget expenditure for this segment of its space program will increase over the next decades. NASA's and ESA's administration structure is different: After the space race activities of the 1960s and early 1970s, NASA has maintained a large administration and bureaucracy that still burdens both current projects and NASA budgets. ESA was never involved in large-scale political activity such as the space race, it therefore has always had a small and efficient structure and agency level comparable to a private company, as only about 1900 people are directly employed by ESA and many projects are allocated over different organisations in several European countries, with ESA coordinating these projects but not directly employing the people involved in the project (decentralized structure). Both the US and Europe maintain space related projects outside their space programs: As it is the case with the United States as well, some highly expensive European space projects are not within ESA's budget, such as the Galileo global positioning system. Space related military spending both in the US and in Europe would increase space related spending if counted towards those entities' space related activity.Comparison with other space agencies
In terms of absolute cash budget size, the ESA has the second largest budget after NASA, with the Japanese JAXA having annual funds of €1.6 billion at its disposal taking the third place, followed by the ambitious Chinese Space Agency with around €1 billion and the Russian Space Agency which incurred a considerable boost in funding in 2006 with an annual federal budget of $800–900 million. If not counted as part of Europe's total space budget (ex-Russian) together with ESA's €3 billion space budget (as outlined above) and other European space agencies, the French Space Agency would be in 4th place with €1.7 billion.
One point in favour of the Russian Space Agency, the Chinese and the Indian space programmes, is that their budgets are growing rapidly largely stemming from the high growth rates of their economies, which leads to increasing amounts of money available with the government.
It should be noted that space programmes have high labour costs, thus in order to compare the actual funds available for each space agency some adjustment with regard to purchasing power parity in each country should be made. Still, considering that Russia, Europe, the US, China, India and Japan are all competing in commercial space launches and costs for rocket launches are in the same range for all of the forementioned countries, it seems that a modifier lower than 4 or 5 would be warranted for a true comparison of national space funding. A very good example of the true comparison of funding is the Russian Space Agency which partly due to its large experience in LEO manned space flight but also due to a higher purchasing power parity could sustain a manned space program comparable to NASA throughout the last 15 years despite its dramatically lower budget.
Notable national space agencies
The Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) (National Centre for Space Study) is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public establishment of industrial and commercial character"). The Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana or ASI) was founded in 1988 to promote, coordinate and conduct space activities in Italy. In addition to its research projects, the centre is the assigned space agency of Germany bestowing headquarters of German space flight activities and its associates. The British National Space Centre (BNSC) is a partnership of the UK government departments which are active in space.Launch vehicle fleet
ESA has made great progress towards its goal of having a complete fleet of launch vehicles in service, competing in all sectors of the launch market. Rocket launches are carried out by Arianespace, an ESA subsidiary (a minority share is held by EADS as well), at ESA's spaceport in French Guiana. Because many communication satellites have equatorial orbits, launches from French Guiana are able to take larger payloads into space than from other northern spaceports.
ESA's Ariane 1, 2, 3 and 4 launchers (the latter of which was ESA's long time workhorse) have been retired. ESA has entered into a €340 million joint venture with the Russian Federal Space Agency over the use of the Soyuz launcher. In addition, the Soyuz rocket—which has been the Russian's space launch workhorse for some 40 years—is proven technology with a good safety record, which ESA might be happy to use for launching humans into space.
See also:
Human space flight
History
At the time ESA was formed, its main goals did not encompass human space flight, rather it considered itself to be primarily a scientific research organisation for unmanned space exploration in contrast to its American and Soviet counterparts. It is therefore not surprising that the first non-Soviet European in space was not an ESA astronaut on a European space craft: It was Czechoslovak Vladimir Remek who in 1978 became the first non-Soviet European in space (the first European in space being Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union) — on a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, followed by the Pole Mirosław Hermaszewski and East German Sigmund Jähn in the same year. This Soviet cooperation programme, known as Intercosmos, primarily involved the participation of Eastern bloc countries, however in 1982, Jean-Loup Chrétien became the first western European cosmonaut on a flight to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station.
Because Chrétien did not officially fly into space as an ESA astronaut, but rather as a member of the French CNES astronaut corps, the German Ulf Merbold is considered the first ESA astronaut to fly into space. STS-9 marked the beginning of an extensive ESA/NASA joint partnership that included dozens of space flights of ESA astronauts in the following years. Beside paying for seats on the Space Shuttle, ESA continued its human space flight cooperation with the Soviet Union and later Russia, including numerous visits to Mir.
During the latter half of the 1980s, European human space flights changed from being the exception to routine and therefore, in 1990, the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany was established.
Astronaut Corps
See also: European Astronaut CorpsThe 16 men who have trained as astronauts under the auspices of the ESA are:
Jean-François Clervoy Frank De Winne Pedro Duque Reinhold Ewald Léopold Eyharts Umberto Guidoni Christer Fuglesang André Kuipers Paolo Nespoli Claude Nicollier Philippe Perrin - did not train as ESA astronaut, but CNES astronaut Thomas Reiter Hans Schlegel Gerhard Thiele Michel Tognini Roberto VittoriOf this list Umberto Guidoni, Michel Tognini, Gerhard Thiele and Philippe Perrin have retired, which leaves 12 ESA astronauts in active status, among whom two, Fuglesang and Nespoli, have not flown yet.
ESA astronauts to have visited the ISS are:
Guidoni(I), ESA, 9th ISS flight (6A) Raffaello MPLM, STS-100/ISS, 2001-04-19 – 2001-05-01 Haigneré (F), CNES Andromède, Soyuz/ISS, 2001-10-21 – 2001-10-31 Vittori (I), ASI Marco Polo, Soyuz/ISS, 2002-04-25 – 2002-05-05 Perrin (F), NASA/CNES, ISS assembly flight UF-2, STS-111/ISS, 2002-06-05 – 2002-06-19 (Remark: was a CNES, not an ESA astronaut at the time of his mission) De Winne (B), ESA, Odissea, Soyuz/ISS, 2002-10-30 – 2002-11-10 Duque (E), ESA, Cervantes, Soyuz/ISS, 2003-10-18 – 2003-10-28 Kuipers (NL), ESA, DELTA Mission, 8S/ISS, 2004-04-19 – 2004-04-30 Vittori (I), ASI Eneide, Soyuz/ISS, 2005-04-15 – 2005-04-25 Reiter (D), ESA Astrolab, ISS assembly flight ULF 1.1, STS-121/ISS, 2006-07-06 –Own manned launch vehicles
In the 1980s France pressed for an independent European manned launch vehicle. With the fall of the Soviet Union ESA looked forward to a cooperation with Russia to build a next-generation human space vehicle. Following talks with the Russian Space Agency in 2004 and June 2005 a cooperation between ESA and the Russian Space Agency was announced to jointly work on the Russian designed Kliper shuttle, a reusable spacecraft that would be available for space travel beyond mere LEO (e.g. The situation is that the executive of ESA and its Human Spaceflight Directorate support Kliper, while the main contributing countries, and in particular Germany, Italy and France, oppose the initiation of a new human space transportation project that would have ESA only be a junior partner in any project.
Projects
International Space Station
With regard to the ISS ESA is not representing all its member states: 5 of the 16 countries have opted out because of either concerns on the expenses of the project or lack of interest. ESA is taking part in the construction and operation of the ISS with contributions such as the Columbus orbital facility, a science laboratory module that will be brought into orbit after NASA's Space Shuttle goes back into service or the Cupola observatory module that was completed in July 2005 by Alenia Spazio for ESA.
As of 2005, the spacecrafts that establish the supply link to the ISS are the Progress and Soyuz spacecrafts as well as the Space Shuttle. The European Space Agency has started to construct a space freighter for the ISS, the ATV, an Automated Transfer vehicle with a cargo capacity of 8 metric tons that will be serving the ISS beginning in July, 2007. Rosetta — a space probe launched in 2004 that will explore comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Venus Express — a space probe to Venus which was launched in Nov 2005 and arrived in orbit around Venus in April 2006.
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