Partners and Rivals

ESA never works alone. It depends on partners, competes with rivals and answers to member governments whose politics change. This chapter looks at its relationships with NASA, Russia and China, the effect of the war in Ukraine on joint projects, what Brexit did and did not change for the United Kingdom, how countries such as Hungary joined, and how the arrival of fast, commercial space companies challenges the old model of a government agency. This is the part of the course closest to current events, so it is the most likely to be out of date, and the text says what to check. Recent events end with the course cut-off of 2026.

NASA: The Closest Partner

ESA's most important partner is the United States. The two have worked together on a long list of projects: Cassini–Huygens, the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, the International Space Station and the Orion capsule, whose service module ESA supplies (Chapters 5 to 7). The relationship is generally close but not equal. NASA's budget is several times larger, and Europe has often provided a part of a mission, such as an instrument, a launch or a module, while the United States leads. Some joint plans have been scaled back when American budgets or priorities changed, and the future of some projects, including a joint plan to return samples from Mars, has been uncertain (check the current status).

Russia and the War in Ukraine

Cooperation with Russia was long and practical: Russian rockets launched ESA astronauts, Soyuz launched from Kourou (Chapter 4), and Russia was a partner in the International Space Station and in the ExoMars programme. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed this quickly.

• Soyuz at Kourou. Russia withdrew and the launches ended (Chapter 4).
• ExoMars. The plan to launch a European rover on a Russian rocket in 2022 was suspended, and ESA later ended the cooperation. A new plan to launch the rover with American help has been discussed for the late 2020s (check).
• The ISS. Cooperation on the station has continued in some form, as it depends on both sides, but the political context has changed.

China

Cooperation between ESA and China has been limited and cautious. There have been some joint science projects, and Europe has provided support for Chinese missions in places, but American law and wider political tensions make close partnership difficult. A joint scientific mission between ESA and China has been planned (check the details), and European astronauts have been reported to be learning Chinese in case of future cooperation with China's space station. The picture is changing, so treat any statement about it as dated.

Brexit and the UK's Place in ESA

Brexit raised an obvious question: does leaving the European Union mean leaving the European Space Agency? The answer is no. ESA is a separate intergovernmental organisation (Chapter 3), and its members include countries outside the EU, such as Norway and Switzerland. The United Kingdom stayed a full member, kept its seat on the council and continued to take part in ESA programmes, and its contribution was later raised.

What Brexit did change was the UK's position in the programmes owned by the EU rather than by ESA (Chapter 8).

Joining ESA: The Case of Hungary

New members have joined over the years, including countries from the former Eastern bloc. Hungary signed up to the ESA Convention in the 2010s and became a full member state in 2015, after an earlier period of cooperation (check the dates). The route to membership usually starts with a cooperation agreement, then an associate status, then full membership, with the aim of getting contracts for national industry in return for contributions (the fair-return idea from Chapter 3). For a smaller country, membership is mainly a way to gain access to space projects that it could not afford alone.

National Agencies and ESA

Alongside ESA, major countries keep their own space agencies. France has CNES, Germany has DLR, Italy has ASI and the United Kingdom has the UK Space Agency (check the current structure, which has been reorganised). These agencies run national programmes, represent their governments in ESA and often pay for a large share of ESA's work. The relationship is a mixture of partnership and rivalry, and some of the arguments in ESA, over leadership and money, are really arguments between national agencies.

The Commercial Challenge

In the 2010s and 2020s private companies, led by SpaceX, changed the economics of space. Reusable rockets cut launch costs, and large satellite constellations changed communications (Chapter 4 and Chapter 8). This put pressure on the ESA model, in which governments contribute money in return for contracts, and projects take many years. ESA has responded by encouraging European launch start-ups, buying services from companies and arguing for more European independence. Whether a government-led agency can adapt as fast as the market is among the main open questions in the field, and recent decisions at ESA's ministerial meetings should be checked for the latest answer.

Exercises

Next chapter: Capstone: What ESA Says About Europe, which draws the course together.