European agency aims to develop spacecraft to take astronauts to Moon

The European Space Agency is drawing up proposals to develop spacecraft over the next decade that could fly ESA astronauts into orbit and to the Moon, according to its director-general Josef Aschbacher.

Speaking to the Financial Times ahead of the FT Investing in Space summit in London, Aschbacher said developing an independent human launch capability was crucial for Europe to catch up in a rapidly evolving global race to space. 

“What is happening in the US, China and India is quite impressive,” he said. “If you step back and see where Europe stands globally, you see that Europe has not engaged at the same level. I see so many opportunities, some of them lost opportunities.” 

A recent independent report commissioned by ESA on human and robotic exploration of space found that more than 100 lunar missions before 2030 had been announced, by both national space agencies and private companies. “At present, Europe is only leading two of them,” it stated.

The report noted that Europe had no independent human launch capacity and relied on non-European partners to send people into space, “which is threatening its future as a credible actor in space”.

At present, ESA is working as a junior partner with the US space agency Nasa on lunar exploration projects. “There is no timetable agreed [with Nasa] on when a European astronaut will be on the moon,” said Aschbacher, “but my hope is that we can achieve this before the end of the decade.”

ESA’s programme to develop a spacecraft capable of carrying European astronauts to low-earth orbit and beyond could improve the way in which Europe manages space procurement, Aschbacher said.

Nasa’s decision in the early 2000s to buy cargo transportation services from the private sector, rather than developing its own vehicles, was the driver behind the rise of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is now the dominant launch provider. “That is exactly the model we are discussing,” he said. 

ESA was preparing “different scenarios and different cost estimates” to present to a meeting of member-state ministers in November. A decision whether to go ahead with a fully funded programme will be made next year.

The agency, which is independent of the EU but acts as its procurement agency, includes non-EU member states such as the UK and Switzerland. “We certainly will have enough elements on the table for politicians to give us clear guidance on how Europe wants to proceed,” Aschbacher said. 

However, Europe is still struggling to resolve a crisis over existing satellite launch capability after losing access to Soyuz rockets following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its Ariane 5 rocket, which in April launched Europe’s €1.6bn Juice spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter’s icy moons, is due to make its last flight this month, while the successor Ariane 6 has been subject to years of delay. The new Vega C rocket is grounded pending an investigation into a failed mission last year.

But Aschbacher said Europe already had many of the building blocks required to develop its own human launch capability within the next decade. 

These included the European service module, which provides electricity, water and oxygen to Nasa’s Orion spacecraft that will send astronauts to the moon. Europe also has the automated transport vehicle that hauls cargo to the International Space Station in low-earth orbit every year.

While Ariane 6 could eventually be upgraded to have a human launch capability, this was not a given. “Other vehicles could be developed” in the same way that Nasa’s strategy had encouraged the emergence of SpaceX, he said.

In November, ESA unveiled 17 new members of its astronaut corps — including the world’s first disabled para-astronaut — at a ministerial summit in Paris, which agreed to raise spending by 17 per cent to €16.9bn over the next five years.