News

During her opening speech of the last European Space Policy Conference, Commissioner Bieńkowska stressed the “need to set in motion a process to define Europe’s vision for Space” and suggested the establishment of a “European Space Council attached directly to the European Council or its President” to achieve this goal. ESPI Executive Brief 29 proposes some perspectives on this interesting proposal.

Our new report Space Venture Europe provides a complete overview of entrepreneurship and private investment trends in the European space sector based on indicators and statistics. With € 220 million invested privately in space start-ups in 2018, Europe hit a new record high and confirmed its position as a key actor of commercial space able to adapt and leverage new trends!

On the occasion of the 56th session of the UNCOPUOS STSC, ESPI organized an Evening Event dedicated to an increasingly critical issue of Space Trafic Management. Insightful presentations were given by two invited international speakers: Moriba Jah, Associate Professor at University of Texas and Holger Krag, Head of Space Debris Office at ESA (slides are available for download).

The European Space Policy Institute is organizing two ESPI Evening Events (13 and 20 February 2019) on the occasion of the 56th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the UN Committe on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Both events will take place at ESPI, starting from 18:30 CET. Registration is mandatory.

ESPI partnered this year again with Business Bridge Europe for the 11th Conference on European Space Policy which has now established itself as the top event for the European space policy community. This year, government officials and high-level representatives of institutions and industry gathered on January 22nd and 23rd in Brussels to discuss the place of space in Europe and the place of European space in the World.

With the historic success of its Chang’e-4 lunar mission, China opened a new chapter in lunar exploration and sent a clear declaration of intent about its long-term ambition to send astronauts back to the Moon. European countries, which will gather this year to agree on ESA’s future programmes, now need to carefully reflect on the consequences of Chinese lunar plans and define what role they want to play in the post-ISS space exploration context.