WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency has officially kicked off a competition to support new launch vehicles, but the winners, if any, won’t be known for at least eight months.
ESA formally published a call for proposals, known by the agency as an invitation to tender (ITT), for the European Launcher Challenge March 24. Proposals are due on May 5, with up to 169 million euros ($183 million) available to each selected vehicle.
The competition will offer contracts for two components. One will be to provide launch services for ESA and other European government, or institutional, customers from 2026 to 2030. The second would be for a “launch service capacity upgrade demonstration” that requires a launch of that upgraded version by 2028.
Plans for the European Launcher Challenge date back to November 2023, when ESA announced it would open up launches to competition from new entrants while also offering guaranteed launches for the Ariane 6 and Vega C vehicles.
ESA officials said in December that they would use the competition to test alternatives to strict “georeturn” policies where member states are guaranteed contracts to companies based in their countries in proportion to the contribution those member states make to those programs. Instead, under the “fair contribution” approach, ESA will select eligible companies and then seek funding at the agency’s “CM25” ministerial conference in November, where ESA members decide what programs to fund and at what levels.
“We’ll go out with the ITT now,” Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA’s director of space transportation, said at a March 20 briefing at a meeting of the ESA Council. ESA will then evaluate the proposals after the May 5 deadline, looking at both their technical feasibility and the companies’ business plans.
“Then we will have a bouquet of eligible companies, and we will enter into a dialogue with the member states,” he said. “We will prepare, based on these proposals, who will be subscribed at CM25.” It was unclear if ESA would reveal who the eligible launch companies are before the ministerial conference.
During a session of the European Space Conference in January, Tolker-Nielsen said he expected ESA to select two to three companies for the challenge. Selected companies will have to augment the ESA funding with their own money “in the same order of magnitude,” he said.
At the time of the conference, six European companies — HyImpulse, Latitude, MaiaSpace, Orbex, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and The Exploration Company — signed a letter outlining their priorities for the European Launcher Challenge. They called for “substantial funding” of at least 150 million euros per company as well as access to launch pads at the European spaceport in French Guiana and “service-type contracts” for launches.
One European launch company that did not sign the letter is PLD Space, which is developing the Miura 5 small launch vehicle. “We need to let the market select a winner,” Raúl Verdú, co-founder and chief business development officer of the company, said at the January conference. “Today, to be very honest, it is super-hard to select who will be the winner.”
Isar Aerospace scrubs first launch
Another potential competitor in the European Launcher Challenge is Isar Aerospace, which is preparing for the first launch of its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. The company scrubbed an initial launch attempt March 24 because of weather conditions.
“Launch vehicle and range remain healthy, and the team is working to determine a new launch window,” the company stated on social media after the scrub. The company’s license from Norwegian regulators, issued March 17, covers launch opportunities through March 31.
“Great first launch attempt today. Quite a few firsts that our team checked off the list,” Daniel Metzler, chief executive of Isar, posted after the scrub. “We’re monitoring weather and [will] attempt again as soon as possible.”
