From February 16th to 17th, under the auspices of the EU’s rotating presidency and host France, ministerial representatives of the 27 EU countries gathered in Toulouse, the European space capital, to discuss the vision of European space development. The two-day meeting aims to clarify the European Space Interconnection Constellation, manned spaceflight and other large-scale space programs, and to make strategic deployments for Europe to accelerate the use of space, combat climate change and in-depth space exploration.
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European version of “Starlink” political green light is on
The “Starlink” plan is a space Internet project launched by SpaceX, an American space service company. It plans to provide high-speed Internet access services from space to the earth with the help of a “Starlink” network composed of more than 40,000 satellites. Similarly, Amazon has also launched “Project Kuiper”, which plans to build 3,236 microsatellites to provide Internet services to the world. With the rapid deployment of “Starlink” satellites, Europe feels that it has fallen seriously behind in space communications.
Just a day before the Toulouse meeting, the European Commission presented two plans to member states: one to propose funding for a common space-connected constellation; the other to draft space traffic rules as quickly as possible. The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Breton, also proposed the concept of a European “secure connection system” at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the same day. “Plan dependencies.
The plan by the European Commission and the European Parliament has been proposed, but it is unknown whether it will win the majority of support, and it will need to wait for the 27 member states to decide whether to agree and inject funds for it.
The answer was revealed the next day. The first topic of the ministerial meeting in Toulouse on the 16th was “Space Traffic Management and the European Connectivity Constellation Project”. Following consultations, the ministers gave the political green light to the European Space Interconnect Constellation project. Although it has not been officially passed, the European version of the “Star Chain Project” is ready to be launched. This is also the third major space program of the European Union after Galileo GNSS and Copernicus Climate Change Services.
Why is the EU eager to build an independent space interconnected constellation system? The European Commission specifically pointed out that the plan is of great significance to the EU’s sovereignty and security, and the most important thing is to strengthen the resilience of member states to access the Internet, especially in the event of a cyber attack or Securing European government and military communications with state-of-the-art encryption technology even when terrestrial fibers are saturated.
Macron emphasized that the constellation system will become “the core of our future life. Europe must play its role here, which is a matter of sovereignty and efficiency, especially when it comes to controlling our data and connections.”
Leading international rule-making
Although the “Starlink” plan has been technically successful, it has been questioned by all parties because of the large number of satellite constellations. Recently, China informed the United Nations that Starlink satellites are dangerously approaching the Chinese space station, threatening the safety of astronauts in orbit, forcing the space station to take preventive collision avoidance control. NASA recently sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, arguing that the “Starlink” program may cause serious congestion in low-Earth orbit, which may have an impact on the implementation of scientific and human space missions. European Space Agency chief Joseph Ashbacher also recently said that Europe should stop helping Musk achieve his ambition to dominate the “new space economy”, and the lack of coordinated action means Musk can set the rules of space business alone.
To this end, the EU has launched the European Space Interconnection Constellation Plan on the one hand, and hopes to limit the orbital congestion caused by competitors such as “Starlink” through the establishment of international laws, so as to prevent collisions and cause a large amount of space debris.
French Economy Minister Le Maire, who presided over the meeting, said that Europe has been leading on many global governance issues, such as digital economy taxation, data protection, and the EU must also step up its regulation of space, because space is a common wealth. Following consultations, European ministers pledged to establish common European rules by 2024 to lead the development of international law on space traffic.
Paving the way for manned spaceflight
Currently, European astronauts rely on the US SpaceX capsule or the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to enter space. On the afternoon of the 16th, French President Macron attended the Toulouse Space Conference. In a half-hour speech, he strived to pave the way for the launch of the European manned space program.
Macron welcomed the need for EU ministers to unanimously agree to preserve European space sovereignty, noting that “the creation of a European space strategy is the key to our sovereignty”. With the development of lunar resources, the development of space tourism and the militarization of space, the EU must defend Europe’s vision of space, which necessarily includes human spaceflight.
The European Space Agency has initially formulated a development path for manned spaceflight. Macron called on the European Space Agency to submit specific proposals for exploration and human spaceflight by the summer for discussion and voting at the European Space Agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris this November. Macron stressed that human spaceflight is about European strategic autonomy, and it involves the exploitation of lunar mineral resources.
The article “Le Figaro” pointed out that Europe has a technical foundation to achieve independent manned spaceflight. A revamped Ariane 6 rocket can launch manned capsules into Earth and lunar orbit, Thales Alenia Space can design and build capsules, Europe has an astronaut training center in Cologne, Germany, and Enthusiasm for human spaceflight sparked 23,000 candidates for the newly recruited European astronauts.