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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.

On occasion of the 56th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the European Space Policy Institute is organizing two evening events, on Wednesday 13 and on Tuesday 19 February 2019.

Primarily envisioned as a non-proliferation instrument, the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) aim to control the export of selected items as a mean to promote U.S. national security interests but also play an active role in U.S. economic diplomacy.

The year 2018 is reaching its end and I believe that the least we can say is that it has been quite a busy year for our Institute! The first point I would like to highlight is the new record high achieved this year regarding the number of publications. Those include books published in collaboration with Springer, ESPI Public Reports or Executive Briefs made available for download from our website and more.

Cyber security in space, as in other sectors, has become a most critical issue. Indeed, space infrastructures have become the target of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, perpetrated from a growing and extremely varied number of actors. This creates an unprecedented level of risk, particularly considering the mounting dependence of the global economy and society on space‐based services.

ESPI participated to IFRI/SWF Space Security Conference on November 27th. ESPI Coordinator of Studies, Sebastien Moranta, presented the conclusions of recent ESPI studies in the field of space security. The presentation provided an overview of the parallel routes adopted by Europe and the United States in this domain and showed how the current changing environment on each side of the Atlantic provides a window of opportunity to revisit and reinforce transatlantic relations for mutual benefits...