The European Space Agency could work on defence projects, its director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain predicts, as the agency undergoes a fundamental review of its entire industrial policy in the light of a planned ESA-European Union joint space programme and an expected EU security and defence policy.
Dordain foresees a future where the agency provides space capabilities for its member states whether they are scientific, civilian or for the military. The EU and ESA are developing a space programme to be agreed in May 2007 at the organisations’ joint Space Council. At a colloquium on space, defence and European security in Kourou, French Guiana last month members of the European Interparliamentary Space Conference, the Western EU Assembly, French space agency CNES, industry representatives and Dordain discussed the many uses of space technologies.
“One of the major conclusions, and this was supported by the [European] parliamentarians, is that we have to take full advantage of the synergy between civil and security and defence requirements. There is not a wall between the two areas,” says Dordain.
ESA has never worked on defence projects, although there is a potential security application for its joint Global Monitoring for Environment and Security project with the EU.
The industrial policy review, announced in May, is to examine the impact of a possible decision by European industry and governments to create a single European space prime contractor. But now the review is going further and examining the relationship between Europe’s first and second tier suppliers and other small companies and their relationship with the primes.
Dordain wants to make sure that “[we can still] associate ESA member states with ESA projects.”
Source: Flight International