ESA Vision

Accelerate the use of space

Europe faces global challenges stemming from climate change and a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape. Space is well placed to help tackle these challenges – but many organisations have yet to realise its full potential.

ESA is inviting all Europeans to accelerate the use of space.

More than 150 potential partners have already been engaged and work has begun.

ESA has elaborated three “accelerators” that contribute to sustainability and resilience on Earth and in space. They will provide decision makers, industry, and society with the support they need to reach policy objectives and to tackle wider societal challenges more effectively.

The accelerators create opportunities for people from outside the space industry and from within it to cooperate and develop new tailored space-based solutions to global challenges.

Working together, partners will identify new ways to use existing space technologies while developing new space technologies to increase the impact of space, including scaling these to new products, services and industries.

The “Space for a Green Future” accelerator will help people not only to monitor, understand, model and predict climate change, but – crucially – to act, mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The “Rapid and Resilient Crisis Response” accelerator will save lives and livelihoods by creating a space-powered system for real-time crisis management. Combining Earth observation and space communications with AI and cloud computing, it will reinforce terrestrial systems that can become compromised by natural disasters or malicious actions.

The “Protection of Space Assets” accelerator will keep the satellites on which people rely for daily life safe and secure from natural hazards such as solar storms and space debris, and protect infrastructure such as electrical grids from the damaging effects of space weather.

 

Download the factsheets

Space for a Green Future Accelerator

Rapid and Resilient Crisis Response Accelerator

Protection of Space Assets Accelerator

Rapid and resilient crisis response

Summer flooding across Europe killed 242 people in 2021 and cost more than €30 billion. Thousands of people needed to be evacuated from their homes due to multiple wildfires burning across Greece that destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest and arable land. Similar wildfires in 2007 caused estimated total damage of close to €3 billion (1.3% of nominal GDP). The Ukraine humanitarian crisis induced by geopolitical instability has impacted migration of over 8 million refugees, with one-quarter of the country’s population displaced. Meanwhile the digital economy increasingly depends on secure and resilient information in many industries, including manufacturing and transport, with cybercrime inflicting an estimated €10 trillion damages by 2025. To save lives and livelihoods, Europe urgently needs a space-based rapid and resilient response to reinforce terrestrial systems that can become compromised by natural disasters or malicious actions.

Protection of space assets

Tens of thousands of new satellites, many in constellations, are being launched globally, generating a stark increase of collision risks. ESA already receives hundreds of collision warnings every week for its own fleet of spacecraft. The current approach consisting of manually assessing collision risk and designing appropriate avoidance manoeuvres will soon prove to be an overwhelming task. Furthermore, space debris mitigation and remediation actions are yet to be sufficiently mastered. Every year, several dozens of objects are not properly disposed and an average of ten unwanted break-ups is observed. This poses huge challenges to the long-term sustainability of the outer space environment and therefore to current and future spacecraft operators. Europe’s vulnerability to disruptions caused by space hazards (debris and space weather events) is growing in parallel with the increasing reliance of our society on satellite services. Even a moderate solar event could cost Europe more than €13 billion in damage and lost services. Such an event happened in 2012, but closely missed the Earth. Will we be so lucky next time?

Space for a green future

Mission statement: The Space for a Green Future Accelerator is a co-governed & independent non-profit partnership of Green Transition actors united under a common banner, engaging governments, businesses, multilateral institutions, civil society groups, end users and citizens to develop practical space-based solutions supporting carbon neutrality and greening of society by 2050. We partner with stakeholders and users, aggregate the priorities of Green Transition sectors and seed solutions that address the real needs. We accelerate the use of space by mobilising resources and scaling solutions to full sectorial and global levels.
15.10.2024

Revolutionising crisis response in Europe with Safeplace 

In an era where natural disasters and emergencies are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, ESA is taking a significant step forward in enhancing Europe’s crisis management capabilities.
15.10.2024

Ciseres: AI-powered satellites for rapid disaster response 

This week, at the International Aeronautics Congress in Milan, ESA officially kicked off a new project called Ciseres, a small satellite mission designed to significantly improve crisis response times using artificial intelligence (AI).

22.05.2024

Twelve countries sign the Zero Debris Charter

Twelve nations have signed the Zero Debris Charter at the ESA/EU Space Council today, solidifying their commitment to the long-term sustainability of human activities in Earth orbit. In addition to the 12 countries, the European Space Agency also signed the Zero Debris Charter as an International Organisation (IGO).
22.05.2024

What’s the difference between ESA’s zero debris approach and the Zero Debris Charter?

This is a question ESA is often asked since both endeavours have been introduced. “Zero debris approach “ is a term which can be used by any space organisation that seeks to reduce its debris footprint drastically – in science or business, public or private.
19.04.2024

ESA and the EU agree to accelerate the use of space

ESA will work closely with the EU to use space to improve life on Earth, following an agreement signed today by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher (left) and the European Commission’s Director-General for Defence Industry and Space, Timo Pesonen.
24.11.2023

Collaboration is key to providing security during crises

Representatives of the space industry came together with individuals from ESA member states, user communities and academia on 22-23 November to discuss how space data are being made more secure and accessible in response to an increasing number of crisis situations, such as climate-change related natural disasters.
24.11.2023

Experts meet in Madrid to define new Space Data Space

As the impact of geopolitical tensions and climate change challenges continue to be felt around the world, key players in Europe’s space sector came together in Spain this week to define the requirements of a future Space Data Space system for Europe. The two-day workshop, co-organised by ESA and the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) and hosted by the EU Satellite Centre in Madrid, was convened in light of the central role played by space-based data in preventing, mitigating and responding to these crises.