ESA Technology Strategy for Europe’s future in space

Written by Copernical Team Tuesday, 15 November 2022 12:20

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ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher’s Agenda 2025 has set the future course of Europe in space, building on the Agency’s Technology Strategy which details how our continent is developing the essential technology to get it where it is going. Reflecting four years of progress since it was first unveiled and the new guidance from Agenda 2025, ESA has now updated the Technology Strategy accordingly. It has been released in time for the Agency’s Council at Ministerial Level in Paris on 22 – 23 November, demonstrating the fundamental role of technology across all ESA missions and programmes.

Flexible solar arrays for future space missions

Responding to Agenda 2025

Upon first becoming Director General, Josef Aschbacher presented Agenda 2025 – his vision of a stronger future European space sector. It begins with a mention of the Agency’s Technology Strategy, originally issued in 2018, which addresses how ESA develops technologies needed to achieve Europe’s goals in space, and returns to the subject frequently.

ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality Torben Henriksen explains: “Underlining the importance of ESA’s technical competence, Agenda 2025 asked for a focus on speed in the introduction of new technologies, a doubling of investment on ‘game-changing’ technologies and the launching of three new technology R&D initiatives.

“This new V ersion 1.2 of the Technology Strategy incorporates the technology guidance from Agenda 2025, showing how Agenda 2025 will be implemented in practice across all ESA’s R&D programmes, as well as how far the Agency has progressed during the last four years.”