The European Space Agency (ESA) is expected to ask its 23 member governments to fund a new constellation of high-resolution satellites and budgeted at some €1.5 billion. This sum is over and above the normal budget requests which will be discussed at the upcoming November 26th-27th meeting between Ministers and ESA, and where ESA’s budget for the next three years will be discussed.
The new project, which the European Commission calls Earth Observation Government Service (EOGS), is named European Resilience from Space (ERS) and the concept calls for images to be available to users within 30 minutes.
The new project was outlined on June 12th at ESA’s Paris headquarters, and where Director-General Josef Aschbacher said, ESA is weighing an ERS/EOGS programme that would be budgeted at about €1 billion ($1.46 billion) for Stage 1 of the system.
The overall three year budget is reportedly €23 billion, and up 36 per cent on that agreed in 2022. But that’s just the start. The EU is considering the financial foundations for ESA of a seven year period and up to €60 billion for its space budget for the period starting in 2028.
