ESA Director of Navigation
Josef Aschbacher has served as the Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) since March 2021. A visionary leader with over three decades of experience in the international space sector, he has been the primary architect of Agenda 2025, Space Ambition 2030 and Strategy 2040—strategies designed to strengthen Europe’s role in space through greater resilience, competitiveness and autonomy.
Prior to his appointment as Director General, Dr. Aschbacher served as the Director of Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESRIN, ESA’s center for Earth Observation in Italy. During this time, he was instrumental in the success of the Copernicus program, which has become the global gold standard for satellite-based environmental monitoring.
with over three decades of experience in the international space sector, he has been the primary architect of Agenda 2025 Space Ambition 2030 AND STRATEGY 2040“
To start, what do you see as the three primary challenges for Space in Europe and for European industries in today’s global context? From your point of view, how are we preparing in Europe to respond to these challenges, and what timeframe should we be looking at to surpass them?
If you ask me what are the main challenges, I would say, number one, it really is to make sure that Europe acts in a united way and brings its strengths together. The European Space Agency is the sum of all the excellent contributions of the Member States, of course, formulating large programs, done and implemented by all the countries.
We need to make sure that we are not fragmented, but we have a united European approach.
We need to increase funding and we are working on this together with OUR MEMBER STATES”
Number two, and you will not be surprised to hear that from me, is finding budget. Europe needs to catch up. We had an enormous success in Bremen at the Ministerial Conference of ESA, 22.3 billion, an absolute record. But still it is by far not comparable with the United States.
In the United States, the public funding, that means NASA, Space Force and other public entities, spend six times as much as Europe put together; meaning European Space Agency, Spanish Space Agency, European Commission, EUMETSAT and other entities.
So if you put all this together and compare it with the United States, there is a factor of six in between. So that is not good. That means we have a difficult starting point. The good thing, though, is that Europe is absolutely excellent in terms of industrial capability, really competitive, and I would almost say one of the most, if not the most competitive worldwide in the space sector.
Because our industry is really good and because we have probably less money, they have to be better with less funding compared to maybe other places.
So the excellence is there, but of course we need to increase funding and we are working on this at the European Space Agency.
The European Commission is coming with a very bold proposal on the ECF and we really need more money, I think as simple as that. We also see it, with the commercial sector, SpaceX having an IPO coming up with the figures, to be confirmed and consolidated, but somewhere in the order of 1.5 or 2 trillion dollars of valuation of the company.
So space is not only scientifically driven; it is also increasingly economically and commercially driven, and that trend will only accelerate.
We are seeing how the growth of the commercial sector is transforming the market. The SpaceX case is a very illustrative example”
The third point is, and this is something where Europe has to catch up, is acceleration. We need to be faster, we need to be bolder, we need to take more risks, we need to be a bit more courageous and this is something where Europe really has to change its mindset and this is a cultural issue, is a mindset issue where Europe has to work on.
I’m quite often in America and I see this can-do attitude: they are going very fast, sometimes very risky, sometimes they make failures, this is true, as we also do in other places, but embracing risk in America is really something that helps them to be very fast and very bold and that’s something Europe also needs to do.
I see this also in Spain. You have a lot of young companies, start-ups that are now emerging and quite successfully. I talk about launchers. We have one of the launcher companies selected for the European Launcher Challenge, PLD Space, here in Spain.
I find this fantastic and I know they are working on it since some time already, but now they are preparing to go to the launch pad and this is what we need. We need companies sometimes having crazy ideas, people saying this never works, this is too crazy, this does not work, we need that.
We need more of that and that’s why I really admire the young generation now who is entering Space.
I just listened very carefully to the speech of the Minister Diana Morant in the Congress. She was also underlining that we have to inspire young people, the young generation, to open business, to study technology, engineering. This is crucial because the space sector is growing.
We need talent, we need young people, we need everyone, but we need also young people to join, so I think there is really a lot to be done.
So we are in a good moment, we are in a really good moment, but we have to do more and faster and more simply.
You mentioned the need of funding and being ambitious and that leads me to the next question. I know you use a political saying that is “Either you are on the table or on the menu, right”? Taking that and looking ahead to the future of the global space sector, do you think Europe is on track to firmly secure our position among the primary decision makers that shape the era of the next space, and if so, in which strategic areas and future programs are we pushing hardest to guarantee that we are there?
We are world class in Earth observation. We have the best Earth observation system in the world. With the Copernicus program, with the Earth Explorers, with meteorological programs, we are collectively having the largest amounts of data coming from our satellites, observing our planet Earth every single day and being disseminated to industry and users worldwide.
About 350 terabytes of data every single day disseminated through the Copernicus program alone. So enormous amounts of data.
We are also world class in science, in Space science, that means to discover the big secrets of our universe. Where do we come from, where do we go, black holes, dark matter, dark energy, all these questions which are very difficult to understand, or everyone is asking them, but difficult to understand, also very philosophical, also very religious.
Are we unique in this universe? Are there many species like us somewhere else? Where do we come from? Where do we go? Where is the universe going? What does planet Earth mean in the big universe? Europe is very good at tackling those questions. We are looking, we are searching for life outside our planet Earth. We have a mission going to Mars, which will drill up below the surface to search for traces of past life.
Around 350 Terabytes Of data are made available every day through copernicus alone"
Just imagine we find traces of ancient life. Of course we analyze it and we will see whether it has a DNA or not. If it has a DNA like you and me, that means there is a common source. If it doesn’t have a DNA, that means there are different ways of life being created.
So all these are fascinating fundamental questions and we are looking at that. We are at the beginning of developing a mission to look for life on the icy moons. There we have Juice, which is right now flying to Jupiter icy moons.
We have BepiColombo also arriving this year, right?
Exactly, BepiColombo arriving this year. So, I mean, there are a lot of things we are doing. There we are really good and I would say top class, if not the best in the world. We have other domains where we have to catch up. Telecommunication, there is nothing like Starlink in Europe.
Launchers, there is nothing like Falcon 9 in Europe for different reasons. I’m not saying that we do need a Falcon 9 because our needs are slightly different than of course in the US where they have six times as much money and much more satellites to launch.
This is very clear. But we have good rockets too: Ariane 6 and Vega-C. They are doing a really, really good job and they are excellent. But it’s not the same launch cadence, the same production time. It’s not reusable. So, there we need to really change gear and catch up and I hope the new launcher challengers, PLD Space being one of them, are really changing this and bringing us forward in a big step.
There are other domains where we need to catch up and be a bit more aggressive. It’s commercialization. We have good companies and also from the European Space Agency we are pushing a lot the commercialization.
I have introduced commercialization as a priority for Europe. I have created a directorate of commercialization and we are doing business incubation centers or Phi-Lab NET, where we give money to industry and we encourage industry to come to us with products where they think that they are close to the market and they need a bit of support from ESA, either money or technical support or engineering support.
We do that, but we leave the industry to drive it.
We also help them finding money, that means investors. We have established what is called an ESA Investors Network with more than 100 banks, venture capital companies, now working with us to find companies in Europe which they can fund.
I quite often go to different places, for example, not only related to the Space domain, but the World Economic Forum in Davos, or places where economy and investment are the main topic.
Very often, I’m the only space person or one of very few space people and people know that I’m from the European Space Agency, from Europe, so I’m getting a lot of venture capital companies, big investors from the United States coming to me and say, look, we understand space is growing very fast, we understand there is the commercial sector increasing.
We understand that Europe is underfunded in terms of private money, what can we do and where can we help and where can we put our funds into industry? And that’s why we created this Investors Network, so that we talk to them and we help them orient, but we also help our space companies, of course, Spanish and other companies, to find money, to find investors.
It is almost a matchmaking exercise, where we bring together brilliant ideas of young startups but they run out of money, so there’s this famous valley of death, which some survive and some not, and we help them surviving and getting through this valley of death in order to really find investors and, of course, we do this in an organized way.
So more money is flowing in now from the investment community, about 1.4 billion last year, which is quite a big increase, 56% more than the year before. So we’re getting there, but, of course, still we are not as fast, not as large as the United States.
You speak a lot about exploration science, which is actually one of the strongest areas of the European Space Agency, but what about human exploration?
Human exploration is a big topic missing space on the left. The question is a very simple one. Today, if we want to fly a European astronaut, let’s take Pablo as one example, to Space, I have to find a partner, a friend who is doing it for us. Today, the only one with whom we are flying astronauts to Space is NASA, and NASA means SpaceX, because it’s the crew dragon with Falcon 9 that brings astronauts to Space.
And it’s working well, and we’re very happy with this cooperation. However, it’s the only one. In the past, we used to fly with Russia, as you know. Of course, this is now impossible. The other option would be China. Again, this is, for many reasons, not pursued.
So, what I really want to ask politicians is: look, we have, of course, major economic blocks in the world. We have the United States, we have China, we have Europe, and we have other economically strong countries.
Europe has an economy of comparable scale to the United States and China. Does Europe, as a continent, and not as a country, want to rely for the next 10, 20, 30 years on others to bring their astronauts to Space? And this is a question I want to ask. The answer has to be given by politicians, but I’m ready to implement it if they say, yes, please, sir, give us a way forward of how we can do it in Europe. And I see this now, especially in the geopolitical situation of today, that we are more and more exposed to other partners.
We have just heard in the ignition event of NASA that the architecture is changing. The Gateway, where Europe was very strongly invested, is paused. That means it’s not terminated, but it’s paused. That means that our investments we have made over the last few years are not secured.
So we have now to redirect them, meaning that we are very dependent on other big space agencies, big partners like NASA in this particular case. Another example was Mars Sample Return, where the mission was canceled and European investments cannot be utilized for what was meant to be.
So this is really a question of autonomy, of strategic orientation, and that’s something I’m really putting on the table. What should Europe do? Europe must ask itself whether it wants to continue with this level of dependency in the future. And, in my view, the answer has to be no.
We have to have more autonomy. This is exactly what I was promoting for the ministerial conference, and this message was heard very clearly, also here in Spain in particular. Big thank you to Spain for its huge investment in the ministerial conference in Bremen. But this autonomy, of course, has many facets, and in addition to navigation, Earth observation, telecommunication and other things, exploration is one of those domains we have to tackle.
But we need a launcher, we need a big launcher, a very big launcher to put humans in orbit. Don’t we?
Yes, but actually, and this is a study we’re doing right now, I believe that Ariane 6 would be capable of launching astronauts. It needs modifications. Of course, we need a launch abort system, which is a major development that does not exist today. But as a rocket, Ariane 6 would have the power and the characteristics of being able to launch astronauts.
You probably remember that Ariane 5, the predecessor, was actually designed to be human rated. It was unfortunately not used for that purpose, but it was designed for it. Ariane 6 is the next evolution, and we need to carefully verify what would be required to support human spaceflight.
Of course, there are other things to be done: the launch pad needs to be made ready for astronauts, they need to go into a capsule, there needs to be the preparations on the launch, on the European spaceport. We need a human-rated capsule, which we don’t have today.
We are having building blocks where we are working towards with the LCRS, the Leo Cargo Return Service, which first will bring cargo to Space and could probably be upgraded for astronauts. We need a crew recovery operation. That means with parachutes, the capsule will recover it from wherever it lands.
So there are things to be done. But I’m confident Europe can do it. I know that. It needs a decision at the political level to say, please, tell us what needs to be done. Please tell us how much it costs. Please tell us who can do it, because I also think it’s very important that we find a good balance between different countries who can contribute to such a development. And then, yes, it needs a decision. And if I get the green light to go, I’m ready to go. Not to go, but to run!
Talking about sustainability, ESA has set a world-leading goal of becoming debris-neutral by 2030. In terms of European industrial competitiveness, do you believe this ‘sustainability-first’ approach is a commercial differentiator for European companies in the global market?
It’s a very good question. Sometimes I hear the argument that if sustainability requirements become too demanding, competitiveness may suffer. This argument certainly has some merit, but it depends a lot on what happens on the regulative side.
ESA itself is not a regulatory body – regulation happens at European and national level. But let us imagine a situation where regulation requires operators to meet sustainability criteria in order to be allowed to do business.
For example, if you were required to demonstrate that, at the end of its life, your satellite will be safely deorbited as part of a sustainability requirement, then it’s very clear and very strong, because you have to be sustainable. And therefore this sustainability is part of your business model, because if you’re not, then you’re out of business. So I think this is something that goes hand in hand with regulation.
I also believe there is a very strong business case in sustainability. Take in-orbit servicing. We have now a satellite in development that will attach to another satellite to extend its life. It’s a telecommunications satellite. It will run out of fuel. And with an attached satellite, we can extend its life for another five years. That means five more years of the satellite of revenue from an existing asset.
So, yes, sustainability by extending life of a satellite and not having it dead, I would say, or having it in debris, creates tangible economic value. So it’s also very, very clear. Another case may be in-orbit removal. Imagine you need to remove satellites from orbit in order to avoid collisions. Again, this may be a business case, because you need to do it or someone needs to do it, either by regulatory requirements or other reasons.
So, yes, a space economy will increasingly develop in orbit, especially in low Earth orbit, and sustainability will be one of its drivers.
But don’t you think we need to do it at an international level, not just European level?
But this is exactly what I mean by regulation. If the European Union would regulate that you can only sell space-based services if you fulfill some sustainability criteria, even other countries selling services in Europe would need to adhere to those. And therefore, yes, sustainability is built into the business model.
Reflecting on the years of your mandate, how have you seen the Spanish Space sector evolve, and what is your assessment of the current contribution of our industry within ESA’s strategic programs?
If you look at my mandate, I became Director General five years ago, and I’ve seen a huge change of Spain over the last few years. Between the Ministerial 2022 and the Ministerial 2025. Spain more than doubled its investments in space through ESA.
And that means, and I really want to say that, that Spain has made very wise decisions in investing so much because Space is a growing economy, it’s growing by about 10% per year globally. Space is becoming more and more critical for security and defense.
a space economy will increasingly develop in orbit and sustainability will be one of its drivers”
Space is entering more and more aspects of daily life: from agriculture to forestry to ship rooting to air quality, city planning, tourism, and many more. And Spain has recognized that this is a domain that is so critical and so strategic, and therefore, investing in it, of course, positions Spain as a country and Spanish industry very well European cooperation and long-term industrial return.
Maybe just one figure that you might know. If you invest one euro in Space, and we have done economic assessments, not ourselves, but by independent economic experts, one euro invested in ESA’s space programs brings about five euros back on average to the economy, through new companies, new SMEs, taxes, exports, and so on. So globally speaking, this is an average for Europe, and Spain is probably even a bit higher because you are more active than other countries.
This means that you invest one euro, and it brings an enormous amount back into the economy, benefits, businesses, and creates new opportunities.
You previously mentioned start-ups. The Spanish ecosystem is booming with ‘New Space’ startups, about 30% of the consolidated revenue of TEDAE’s Space industry (~€384 million in 2024) comes from SMEs in the sector. What specific ESA mechanisms are being optimized to ensure that startup companies can scale up and compete in a global market?
It’s very encouraging to see that. This percentage of startups in Spain is actually higher than the average compared to other countries in Europe. That means that you have a very dynamic ecosystem, which shows that you have a lot of brilliant people with brilliant ideas who are creating a company and bringing this to the market. So therefore, really great new opportunities. And maybe some of these new startups are the future SpaceX or similar European space players of the future.
Texto: Andrea Ortiz
