Ticket to ride with Boost!
In line with global trends, the European space transportation sector is under transformation – with more and more commercial actors taking the entrepreneurial challenge of proposing, developing and operating new services under private leadership. Acknowledging that a thriving commercial space transportation sector is of benefit to Europe, ESA is actively fostering new European privately-led space transportation services through its Commercial Space Transportation Services Programme, known as Boost!
With Boost! ESA is offering a lean and flexible programmatic framework providing entrepreneurs and their consortia across member states with co-funding and access to ESA’s expertise and facilities – to help them turn concepts into commercial reality. The programme was initiated at Space 19+, the 2019 edition of ESA Member States’ triennial ministerial-level budget- and agenda-setting meeting. Boost! is available to European companies developing launch services or in-orbit transportation and return-from-space capabilities. While building on the benefits of ESA partnership, they retain overall technical and commercial authority and responsibility for the services they are developing.
Boost! has partnered with several innovators in European space transportation. These include launch service developers targeting the growing small satellite market: HyImpulse Technologies, ISAR Aerospace Technologies and Rocket Factory Augsburg in Germany, and Orbex and Skyrora in the UK. Also receiving Boost! support is Space Forge, a UK-based company working on a reusable return-to-Earth vehicle designed to offer a “microgravity on demand” service. Another beneficiary is D-Orbit, working in Italy and the UK to ramp-up the industrialization of its orbital transportation service and establishing a satellite assembly, integration and testing facility in the UK to offer responsive end-to-end orbital services.
ESA’s Agenda 2025 priorities emphasise the role played by a vibrant private sector in bringing the benefits of space technology to Europeans, and Boost! is proving to be an enabler of commercial innovation.
A key impact of the Boost! programme has been to make promising new space businesses even more attractive to private investors and talent, creating a virtuous cycle of rapid development, which reduces time scales and costs. For every euro invested by ESA, more than five euros have been attracted from private actors.
To build on these successes, ESA is proposing to the November 2022 CM22 ministerial meeting in Paris that Boost! be expanded to further strengthen space transport services in ESA Member States. ESA proposes continued support to technical and industrial developments reflecting the evolving maturity and needs of new space transportation services, and enlargement of the Boost! portfolio to include new ground-based and in-flight services required by commercial operators. Furthermore, a proposed EU-ESA European Flight Ticket Initiative would co-fund rides to space for selected ready-to-fly satellites in need of an in-orbit demonstration or validation mission to prove their capabilities.
ESA Director of Space Transportation Daniel Neuenschwander emphasized the value of creating constructive relationships between ESA and aspiring commercial partners. He said: "The Boost! Programme has shown that partnering with ESA brings significant benefits to industry in delivering new services. Decisions by ESA Member States at CM22 will allow ESA to step up along this path and further strengthen service developments across Europe."