The European Space Agency on Wednesday selected two companies to create designs for a cargo spacecraft that could achieve the continent's first sovereign access to space.
The two prize winners, Thales Alenia Space, a major aerospace giant, and French startup The Exploration Company, will each receive €25 million ($27 million) to develop concepts for vehicles that can transport cargo to and from stations in low Earth orbit . This first phase will run through 2026, after which additional competitive contract opportunities are expected to follow. The goal is to have at least one capsule perform a demonstration flight to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2028 and have a cargo service online by the end of the decade.
Right now, Europe relies on its international partners to transport cargo and crew to space “through a barter system”, the space agency explained when it announced the LEO Cargo Return Service contracts last year. But the impending collapse of the International Space Station and the rise of privately owned space stations means that Europe may no longer have any meaningful means of bartering, and would instead have to pay cash to access space.
The LEO Cargo Return Service contract was designed to hopefully invest that money in European industrial capacity instead. The cargo service could even become a stepping stone to crewed transportation options, just as SpaceX's Dragon capsule has a crewed variant and a cargo-only variant.
“It prepares us for the post-ISS era, strengthens the competitiveness of European industry in low Earth orbit operations, and is also a test case for ESA's transformation and working differently,” said Daniel Neuenschwander, Director from ESA's Human and Robotic Exploration in a statement. .
The LEO Cargo Return Service contract, first announced last year, is similar to NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program established in 2006. That program resulted in lucrative multi-billion dollar service contracts for SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation (now part of Northrop Grumman).
Ultimately, however, NASA paid hundreds of millions of dollars to both competitors to develop their respective capsules — SpaceX's Cargo Dragon and what is now Northrop's Cygnus — so the agency will have to do more lobbying to ensure it gets the money it needs. fund these capsules for the rest of the decade.
Hélène Huby, CEO of The Exploration Company, said the capsule, named Nyx, is being designed to serve the International Space Station, future private space stations and NASA's Gateway lunar orbital platform. The French startup has raised about $65 million from venture capitalists for the design of its vehicle, and the first flight is on track for 2026, Huby confirmed in a recent interview.
“This contract is just the beginning,” Huby said.
