Esa Turns 50, Amid Strengths and Challenges

Historic milestones in Solar System exploration missions and a leading role in Earth observation. Yet, the European Space Agency still faces critical challenges starting with human space transportation to orbit.

BY EMILIO COZZI

On August 9, 1975, the European Space Agency had been in existence for just over two months. The agreement that led to the merger of the European Space Research Organization (Esro) and the European Launcher Development Organization (Eldo) into the European Space Agency (Esa) was signed on May 30, 1975.

Fifty years ago, ten founding countries including Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain were soon followed by Ireland. They decided to create a single agency for a shared and peaceful space program. And on August 9 of that same year, Esa’s first satellite lifted off from the Vandenberg base in California. Cos-B reached orbit atop a Delta rocket, with the mission of investigating gamma ray sources from intergalactic space.

At that time, Europe did not yet possess a rocket powerful enough to carry Cos B (which was not even particularly heavy). The Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, chosen as Europe’s gateway to space due to its proximity to the Equator, had only hosted a few launches of Diamant rockets. The space age had already begun nearly two decades earlier, and Europe, despite the efforts of some individual countries such as Italy and France, was still striving to earn its place among the stars. It succeeded thanks to Esa.

New Frontiers in the Solar System

Fifty years later, Europe’s achievements in space are now glorious chapters in history. Several of them were recalled by the Agency’s Director General, Austrian Josef Aschbacher, during the press conference following the June Space Council. A few highlights, in no particular order: Giotto, which flew past the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup, the first European mission into deep space; Rosetta, the first mission to enter orbit around and land on a comet; Gaia, recently completed, which mapped in 3D two billion stars in the Milky Way and tracked their movement; Cassini, a joint mission with the Italian Space Agency (Asi) and Nasa to study Saturn and its moons.

Today, Esa boasts robotic pioneers across many regions of the Solar System: Mars Express, orbiting Mars, discovered underground ice deposits; the Trace Gas Orbiter, part of the ExoMars program, is studying the Martian atmosphere; Juice, launched in 2023, is en route to Jupiter to study some of its moons and the potential for life in their subsurface oceans; BepiColombo, in collaboration with the Japanese space agency Jaxa, is heading toward Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun.

Just a few days ago, Solar Orbiter, which is observing our star from (very) close up, sent back the first images and scientific data of a region never seen before: the Sun’s pole, offering crucial insights into solar weather and its mechanisms. Another ambitious science mission, Euclid, is mapping galaxies in 3D across the universe in search of clues about dark matter and dark energy. The most important space telescope of the last 30 years, Hubble, is the result of collaboration between Nasa and Esa as is the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest telescope ever launched, placed into orbit with exceptional precision by the European Ariane 5 rocket, a paragon of reliability.

In October 2024, the Hera probe launched from Cape Canaveral to reach the asteroid Didymos and its moon, the one struck by Nasa’s Dart projectile to study a planetary defense system against comets and asteroids that could one day threaten Earth.

A Look at Earth

At its fiftieth anniversary, Europe has two operational rockets, Vega C and Ariane 6, after a painful hiatus during which it depended on the United States. And it has a spaceport that, in the near future, will be populated by private companies with their own competing light launchers. Europe can be considered autonomous in access to space, but not when it comes to its own astronauts.

Because despite the glory and major achievements, having been founded 14 years after the flights of Gagarin and Shepard, six years after the first Moon landing and three after the last, in half a century it has not managed to develop and test its own crewed spacecraft.

On the other hand, Europe has carved out a leading role in Earth observation. The Sentinel satellites of the Copernicus constellation (funded by the European Union) and the experimental probes for climate monitoring have been providing valuable data for years about our changing planet and the climate crisis. These data are crucial for land management, emergency response, and disaster relief. They are open, free, and accessible to anyone. Thanks also to Esa, Europe owns the most accurate geopositioning system in existence: Galileo.

From the Iss to Private Ventures

In the 1990s, together with the Americans, Russians, Canadians, and Japanese, ESA conceived, developed, and built the International Space Station, the most important extraterrestrial cooperation project to date. It then began selecting its own astronauts, who flew on short- and long-duration missions to conduct thousands of experiments and to carry the flag not just of a single country, but of all 23 Esa member states.

It is expected that in about five years, the International Space Station will no longer orbit above us. New challenges will be taken on by private actors, with commercial orbiting laboratories from which Esa like Nasa, other space agencies, companies, governments, and private individuals will be able to rent space and time in orbit for its own programs, crews, and experiments.

In its most recent astronaut selection, the Agency also chose reserve astronauts to be trained like the “official” ones and deployed in the context of privately funded missions, backed by national governments, as already happened with Axiom’s trips to the Iss. These are new doors opening onto the future of a profession and a sector undergoing major transformation and becoming increasingly vital. Recently, as mentioned, Esa has been looking for new providers of transport services to increase its options for accessing orbit.

Because, ultimately, the strength of 23 united countries which made it possible to literally build a space sector even where it once seemed impossible has also been its weakness. The mechanism of “geographical return,” according to many analyses (including the recent report by Mario Draghi), has slowed innovation and technological development by requiring that funding for mandatory programs be spent on industrial contracts within the contributing member states.

The environment is fragmented a characteristic that has not benefited the market or competition. A prime example? The launcher segment, which has essentially been a duopoly until now. The 27 European Union countries have yet to fully and collectively capitalize on the opportunities offered by space in terms of the space economy, innovation, and entrepreneurial initiative technology and science in service of the citizen.

Lacking a unified governance structure, Europe has had to navigate the demands and expectations of each individual state. And to complicate matters, Esa is now accompanied by another agency: Euspa, the European Union Agency for the Space Programme, which manages Galileo, Copernicus, and the government satellite communication services of GovSatCom. It’s true that in recent years, relations between the Eu and Esa seem to be growing closer and more solid. But still with a noticeable delay compared to the ambitions.

It’s Not America

In five decades, the Europeans’ space agency has worked in close cooperation with Nasa. It is alongside the Americans that Esa plans to return to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program. And it is from this relationship, recently more complicated, that a major shift might emerge, a true test of maturity for a space agency as it approaches future challenges.

The most recent Nasa budget proposal from the U.S. government, under the Trump administration, spelled out in black and white its intent to cut many projects and funding, several of them in collaboration with Esa. Among the most drastic proposals are the cancellation of the Lunar Gateway, the orbiting space station for which Thales Alenia Space has already delivered the first module built in Turin; the phase-out of the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule after Artemis III (for which Esa supplies the service module); the cancellation of the Mars Sample Return program, intended to bring Martian soil samples back to Earth; and the ExoMars mission with the Rosalind Franklin rover, meant to search for signs of life beneath the Red Planet’s surface. Also at risk are the LISA interferometer, the NewAthena space telescope, and Ariel, a mission to study the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars.

Following the publication of these proposed budget cuts, still awaiting final approval from Congress, Esa Director General Josef Aschbacher emphasized Europe’s autonomy and its strength as an attractive partner. In early May, a joint declaration of intent was signed with the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for cooperation in human space exploration, initially focused on low Earth orbit and later extending to the Moon. India is the rising space power, the one it will be most beneficial to collaborate with in the future without compromising relations with the United States (something likely if agreements were to be made, for example, with China).

In November, at the next Ministerial Council, when ministers will decide which missions and programs to fund for the following three years, and how much money to allocate, the stakes will be high.

While the United States sets its sights on Mars, without ruling out going there alone, and China moves through its extraterrestrial roadmap like clockwork, the European Space Agency must finally determine how to become truly autonomous. And how to be effective. The risk is to fall out of History or to be doomed to constantly chase it.

At fifty, that’s a luxury Europe cannot afford.