![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/The_Exploration_Company_cargo_vehicle_rendering_pillars.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Artist\u2019s illustration of the Exploration Company\u2019s Nyx reentry capsule.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
The LEO Cargo Return Service program is modeled on NASA\u2019s efforts a decade and a half ago to kick-start the development of the US commercial space industry. Through public-private cost-sharing arrangements, NASA\u2019s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program fostered two independent vehicles to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
\u201cThe LEO Cargo Return Service project exemplifies ESA\u2019s commitment to ensuring Europe\u2019s prominent role in space exploration,\u201d said Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA\u2019s director of human and robotic transportation. \u201cIt prepares us for the post-ISS era, strengthening European industry\u2019s competitiveness in low Earth orbit operations, as well as being a test case for the ESA transformation and working differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like NASA\u2019s approach with the COTS program, ESA is co-funding the development of the new European commercial cargo spacecraft with private industry. ESA is requiring The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space to pay for at least 20 percent of the work covered in the initial two-year Phase 1 contracts. Once the resupply vehicles are operational, ESA or other customers could buy cargo transportation services to low-Earth orbit using fixed-price contracts.<\/p>\n
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, now part of Northrop Grumman, used the NASA investment from the COTS program alongside internal capital to develop the Dragon and Cygnus supply ships and the Falcon 9 and Antares rockets. SpaceX used the vehicles developed through the COTS program as a basis for the human-rated Crew Dragon spacecraft and upgraded versions of the Falcon 9 rocket. The rest, as we know, is history.<\/p>\n
The European Space Agency, meanwhile, has flirted with small-scale public-private partnerships focusing on individual technologies that perhaps, one day, could find their way into an operational rocket or spacecraft. But ESA\u2019s policies have stood in the way of going all-in with a service contract like COTS, where companies, not the government, are responsible for all engineering design decisions, as long as they meet the agency\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n
One of these policies is a rule, known as geo-return, to dole out industrial contracts to companies in each European nation commensurate with that government\u2019s financial commitment to an individual project. For example, the governments of France and Germany fund the majority of the Ariane 6 rocket\u2019s development costs. So, by rule, most of the design and manufacturing of the Ariane 6 rocket must take place in those nations. This strangles competition among subcontractors and suppliers. The head of the French space agency last year called out the geo-return rule as one of the reasons for rising costs and delays on the Ariane 6 program.<\/p>\n
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Aschbacher said ESA is not requiring the first phase of the LEO Cargo Return Service to follow the geo-return principle. It\u2019s unclear if the second phase, if approved late next year, will be shackled by any geo-return restrictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe contract very differently because we will be the anchor customer,\u201d Aschbacher said. \u201cThat means we buy a service. We give industry all the freedom to find the best solution technically, but also the best partners, with whomever they want to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting to the finish line with the LEO Cargo Return Service program will require \u201can order of magnitude\u201d more funding than ESA awarded to the two companies in Phase 1, Cristoforetti said. This suggests ESA foresees spending more than $500 million on the program. Not accounting for inflation, NASA spent a similar amount on COTS.<\/p>\n
For Phase 2, culminating in the demonstration flight to the ISS, ESA officials anticipate opening the competition to all European industry, not just The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space.<\/p>\n
Betting on a post-ISS economy<\/h2>\n
But there\u2019s no assured path to transition a European cargo spacecraft from a demo mission to the ISS into operational flights. Right now, the ISS is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030. NASA and ESA hope privately owned space stations, like those planned by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, Voyager Space and Airbus, Axiom Space, and Vast, will be ready to take over research from the ISS by the end of this decade. There are reasons to be skeptical about this timetable.<\/p>\n
For now, Cristoforetti said ESA does not foresee any future European cargo vehicles flying multiple missions to the ISS. \u201cWe want them to fly their demonstration missions to the ISS because we prefer to fly the demonstration missions in an environment that we are familiar with,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we expect the actual services to be targeting the new potential LEO destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
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She said European officials could revise this plan if the ISS partners extend the station\u2019s lifetime beyond 2030, a possibility if the commercial outposts are not deployed by then.<\/p>\n
ESA once boasted perhaps the most capable cargo delivery vehicle in the International Space Station\u2019s fleet of resupply freighters. The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) delivered more than 30 metric tons of cargo to the space station in five missions between 2008 and 2014. It also had the ability to refuel the station\u2019s Russian propulsion system and boost the lab into a higher orbit. But the ATV cost more than a half-billion dollars per flight, and it didn\u2019t have a heat shield, so it burned up on reentry.<\/p>\n
With the LEO Cargo Return Service, ESA aims to help commercial industry develop at least two new cargo spacecraft for about the same cost to the agency as a single ATV mission. And these vehicles will be designed for round-trip flights to and from low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt needs reentry capability, a technology which we do not have today in Europe,\u201d Aschbacher said.<\/p>\n
Abhi Tripathi, who managed certification of the Dragon crew and cargo spacecraft for SpaceX, told Ars that it\u2019s important for ESA and its LEO Cargo Return Service contractors to establish and understand requirements early and identify areas susceptible to cost overruns or delays. They should also focus on the steps needed to certify the European cargo vehicles to safely approach the International Space Station, he said.<\/p>\n
But this shouldn\u2019t take two years\u2014the duration of ESA\u2019s initial contracts with The Exploration Company and Thales Alenia Space, according to Tripathi. This \u201cimmediately conveys a lack of urgency and seriousness,\u201d he told Ars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my estimation, having led this process twice, 2028 is an impossible goal for an ESA-funded cargo vehicle,\u201d Tripathi said. Something like 2030\u20132032 is more achievable, he said, if the companies have \u201cthe right technical DNA, and if ESA finds a way to squash European bureaucracy and subcontract fighting between countries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Space Agency has awarded initial contracts to a German-based startup and one of the continent\u2019s established aerospace companies to develop spacecraft to ferry cargo to and from space stations in low-Earth orbit. ESA announced the two 25 million euro ($27 million) contracts May 22. The Exploration Company, co-located in France and Germany, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}