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The European Space Agency, based in the 15e The ESA, which is based in the Paris arrondissement, is still little known to the general public, who associate it with the European Union. This is not the case: although it develops EU space programmes, ESA is an intergovernmental agency created by and for its Member States - including France - half a century ago, on 30 May 1975. Not all EU Member States are members of ESA, and three non-EU countries are among the 23 current members of the Agency: the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway.
On 26 and 27 November, as it does every three years or so, the ESA Council will bring together the space ministers of its member countries. «The stakes are high, since these ministerial Councils will be registering subscriptions corresponding to 70 to 75% of the ESA budget for the next 3 years», explains Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon, senior advisor for security and defence programmes and an auditor at the IHEDN. «The rest comes from the European Union, from customers such as the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), or from Member States that entrust ESA with the development of national programmes.»
The European agency therefore has no guaranteed or renewable budget: everything depends on subscriptions, and therefore on the programmes and activities decided by the Member States," continues the advisor:
«From one year to the next, budgets can be higher or lower than the previous year, although fortunately in recent years they have tended to increase. The total ESA budget for 2025 is almost €8 billion.»
MANNED FLIGHTS, ROBOTIC MISSIONS, EARTH OBSERVATION, TELECOMMUNICATIONS...
As always, the activities to be proposed to the ministers cover a very broad spectrum: science, manned flight and robotic missions, Earth observation, telecommunications, navigation, space transport, operations, space safety, technology, etc. These different programmes are either subscribed to en bloc by the States, or «à la carte», explains Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon:
«Each time, ESA proposes a «package» of programmes (some continuing existing programmes, others new) covering activities at «resource level» (space science, studies, investment, education, etc.) financed in proportion to the GNP of each State (once they have agreed on the total to be financed). The others are so-called «optional» activities, which each State is free to fund or not, and at the level it wishes».»
Senior Security Advisor to the Director General of ESA (since 2021, Austrian astronomer Josef Aschbacher), Air Force Major General (in 2e section) Pascal Legai is convinced that «the need for space programmes is growing all the time, given all the challenges facing Europe and for which space can provide partial but decisive solutions. European industrial capacities are at the highest level, capable of very high-tech developments with much lower budgets than on the other side of the Atlantic».
That said, the general continued, it is «difficult to know how the decisions will be made next month», against a backdrop of political instability and budgetary constraints in some countries, and funding requirements for crucial sectors such as education, health and defence.
THE END USER CHOOSES CIVIL AND/OR MILITARY USE
Even if ESA has a civilian vocation, its actions benefit the defence of its member countries - as is always the case in space, programmes have a potential «dual» civilian and military application. Article II of the Convention governing the ESA and signed by its Member States stipulates the following:
«The Agency's mission is to ensure and develop, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation between European States in the fields of space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their use for scientific purposes and space systems.»
However, as Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon explains, «apart from purely scientific satellites, we at ESA are not the operators of the systems developed. It is up to each owner or user to decide how they will be used, whether for civilian or military purposes».
With regard to France, the senior advisor for security and defence programmes explains:
«If we take the six main functions of its national defence and security strategy (knowledge-understanding-anticipation; deterrence; protection-resilience; prevention; intervention; influence), ESA programmes, in accordance with its mandate and status, contribute directly (or could better contribute) to three of these functions: knowledge-understanding-anticipation, protection-resilience and prevention. They can also support the other three.»
«Armies have always used the operational space resources developed by ESA,» adds Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon, "particularly for meteorology, large-scale Earth observation and telecommunications. And in the current context of increasing crises, ESA's role could be strengthened in depth:
«Over the past 50 years, satellites and their derived services have become essential allies for those who have to manage these crises. But today, Europe only has resources that partially meet the needs, with a number of satellites or national, commercial and European services that are not capable of talking to each other. If they were united, they would not even be able to provide effective support during the acute phases of a crisis, in particular to enable real-time access to useful data and information, regardless of where in the world they are located».»
A «EUROPEAN RESILIENCE FROM SPACE» PROGRAMME»
To address this weakness, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher will be proposing an ambitious resilience programme to the Member States at the Council meeting on 26 and 27 November in Bremen, Germany. General Legai outlines the details:
«The ERS programme (European Resilience from Space) aims to build a system of systems that will provide crisis managers with a comprehensive, interoperable, secure and highly responsive set of resources and solutions. This system will combine observation, communication (from the IRIS² multi-orbital satellite network developed with the EU) and positioning (the Galileo satellite constellation and its evolutions, for the EU) resources as well as, eventually, interfaces with drones, high-altitude platforms, the Internet of Things or social networks».»
Through this ERS programme and more generally, ESA is seeking to «gain a better understanding of the needs of armies and services responsible for maintaining security on Earth, so that they can be taken into account in the development of the most useful programmes and applications possible, and to involve future users in the validation of solutions», adds the DG's Senior Security Advisor.
«TO BETTER MEET THE NEEDS OF SECURITY AND DEFENCE USERS».»
The Member States already seem interested, to the point of envisaging a shift in ESA funding. General Legai would like to see this happen:
«A number of defence ministries are currently analysing whether it would be in their interests to fund the ERS programme or other ESA programmes directly, whereas traditionally ESA funding comes from the research or economic ministries. They could also record this expenditure as part of their commitments to NATO. This is a real development, made possible by our Convention, and would enable us to better meet the needs of security and defence users.»
Pending government decisions at the end of November, ESA's activities are helping to strengthen Europe's strategic autonomy. One of the most telling examples of this is Galileo, a satellite positioning system that has been fully operational since 2024 and is more efficient than its American competitor, the government's GPS programme.
Galileo has 32 satellites in orbit and 6 ready to be launched, for more than 5 billion users worldwide (all recent telephones receive its signals). Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon gives a very concrete example of its performance for the general public:
«For example, the «basic» service, which is open to everyone, can tell you which lane of motorway you are in, whereas the public signal from the American GPS military system can only tell you which motorway you are on. As for the High Accuracy Service (High Precision Service), it is accurate to within 20 cm.»
Other Galileo services have been developed, for example to secure air navigation, while the EGWSS (Emergency Galileo Warning Satellite Service), designed for civil protection services, carried out a successful first demonstration. And at the end of the year, the PRS (Public Regulated Service), reserved for government use and eagerly awaited by Member States' militaries, will be declared ready for initial operations.
To find out more:
France's space power: assets to become a driving force once again
