Countries Draw Battle Lines Ahead of European Launch Challenge
In an op-ed published in the French newspaper Les Echos on 28 January, MaiaSpace CEO Yohann Leroy argued that “the European Launcher Challenge must not become a competition between states.” However, Leroy’s plea appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as countries rush to bolster their chosen champions with funding ahead of the launch of the bidding process next month. A prime example of this is the UK government's backing of Orbex with a £20 million investment after selecting it as its champion.
For context, the European Launcher Challenge was established following the ESA Council meeting in Seville in November 2023. The initiative aims to support the development of sovereign European launch capabilities, with current plans to provide €150 million to each successful bidder. The challenge is intended to serve as a catalyst for the emergence of a privately developed successor to the Ariane 6.
According to the Financial Times, the UK government hired accountancy firm PwC in October to assess Orbex's financial health and confirm that all financing options had been exhausted before considering government intervention. Late last week, UK Space Agency Director of Launch Matthew Archer stated that the country's participation in the European Launcher Challenge was "essential." Archer went on to state that the agency was representing the country’s "national interests in discussions with ESA counterparts and would prioritise activities that ensure the best possible UK proposals."
On 28 January, the Scottish space industry cluster Space Network announced that Orbex was seeking partners and suppliers to form a “European coalition of companies” to compete in the European Launcher Challenge. The announcement described the challenge as a “once-in-a-generation initiative.” Just one day later, the UK government published a press release revealing that it had made a £20 million investment in the company. While the included statements from government officials didn’t directly mention the challenge, Orbex CEO Phillip Chambers did, stating: “This investment paves the way not only for us to launch our first rocket this year but also to develop a larger rocket to compete in the European Launcher Challenge.”
The United Kingdom is not alone in its push to bolster the bids of domestic rocket builders.
On 19 December 2023, the German government announced that it would be deploying €95 million in funding to domestic rocket builders Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and HyImpulse. In its announcement, the government was not remotely coy about its intentions, stating that the funding would "strengthen German start-ups for their participation in the planned European Launcher Challenge."
France was arguably the first to take a big swing at backing its domestic rocket builders ahead of the challenge. In March 2024, the French government announced that it would make €400 million available to HyPrSpace, Latitude, Sirius Space Services, and ArianeGroup's subsidiary MaiaSpace. The committed funding was, however, not awarded immediately. Each company received a small award with the promise of guaranteed contracts following the inaugural flight of their respective launch vehicles. While not explicitly framed as such, this level of commitment from the French state undeniably strengthens the prospects of the four French rocket builders as they prepare to compete in the challenge. While not among the awardees of this €400 million commitment, the Exploration Company has hinted that it intends to compete in the challenge.
Founded in 2021, the Exploration Company is currently focused on a multi-use, reusable spacecraft called Nyx that will initially deliver cargo to the International Space Station. However, in early 2021, it was revealed that the company had begun work on a CNES-backed project to develop a high-thrust rocket engine called Typhoon, capable of producing 200 tonnes of thrust. In October 2024, the company's Typhoon project received additional support from ESA, which awarded it a contract through the agency’s THRUST! initiative, aimed at accelerating the development of European liquid propulsion solutions. It was, however, not until January 2025 that there was a more concrete indication that the company was working on a rocket that would be equipped with its Typhoon engines.
The Exploration Company was one of six signatories to an open letter to ESA outlining a list of key priorities they wanted the agency to consider when implementing the European Launcher Challenge. The other five signatories were out-and-out rocket builders: HyImpulse, Latitude, MaiaSpace, Orbex, and RFA. While the Exploration Company may intend to partner with one of the five rocket builders to form a consortium, its likely long-term goal of reducing its reliance on third-party launch providers to deliver Nyx to orbit suggests it sees the challenge as a catalyst for kick-starting the development of its own rocket. Plus, with over $770 million in secured contracts, an impressive funding history, and offices around Europe that could be used to streamline any geo-return requirements, the Exploration Company will be a formidable competitor in the challenge.
Italy has two rocket builders: Avio, the established stalwart, and Sidereus Space Dynamics, the unproven up-and-comer. Avio is the natural frontrunner for the country, as it has already received significant funding from the Italian government. While it's unlikely to bid with Vega E, as its development is largely funded through ESA awards, it may compete with its next-generation, partially reusable rocket, the development of which is being supported by the aforementioned government funding. Referred to by the company as Vega Next, the rocket will feature two stages, both powered by liquid-fuel rocket engines, a significant departure from previous Vega rockets. The first stage will feature the company's MR60 methalox rocket engine, which it is developing with €103.7 million in funding from the Italian government. The upper stage will feature the company's smaller MR10 methalox engine, which is being developed under an ESA contract for initial use aboard the Vega E rocket. Neither Avio nor the Italian government has indicated that the company plans to submit a bid for the European Launcher Challenge.
Then there’s Spain. In January 2023, close to a year before the European Launcher Challenge was announced, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the country’s Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), published a call for the development of a small satellite launcher. PLD Space and a consortium led by Pangea Aerospace answered this call. In January 2024, PLD Space was selected, with the company receiving a €40.5 million loan from the Spanish government. So, the country had pursued and chosen a champion without consideration for the challenge. That being said, PLD Space has telegraphed its hand with the announcement of a family of rockets to follow Miura 5. Announced in October 2024, the rockets would utilize a standard central core with three variants: a single stick, two boosters, and four boosters. The rockets are called Miura Next, Miura Next Heavy, and Miura Next Super Heavy. In addition to the rockets, the company also announced that it had kicked off the development of a crew capsule called Lince.
The form and fit of the European Launcher Challenge
In early 2024, ESA published a Request for Information (RFI) campaign for the European Launcher Challenge, aimed at assessing the "status, ambitions and perspectives of European launch service providers" and allowing them to "actively participate in the definition of the European Launcher Challenge." The period for submissions closed in July 2024. In December 2024, during the 330th ESA Council meeting in Paris, the European Launcher Challenge officially became an ESA programme. However, funding for the challenge will not be agreed upon until the Ministerial Council meeting in November. In a media briefing following the ESA Council meeting in December, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher announced that an Invitation to Tender (ITT) call for the European Launcher Challenge would be published in February, officially opening the bidding process. While the publication of the ITT is just weeks away, it appears that there are still specifics of the challenge yet to be confirmed.
While ESA has declined to comment on the meeting, Rune Eriksen, Head of Industry Policy at the Norwegian Space Agency, stated in a LinkedIn post that member states would be discussing the European Launcher Challenge during this week's Industry Policy Committee meeting. The exact nature of this meeting is not known, but it’s likely focused on finalizing the specifics of the challenge before pushing ahead with the publication of the ITT next month.
For its part, the industry has worked to shape the direction of those discussions. As mentioned briefly above, six rocket builders outlined what they saw as key priorities for the initiative’s implementation in an open letter published late last week. The group’s priorities included increasing funding awards beyond the proposed €150 million, securing access to launch pads at the Guiana Space Centre, and establishing service contracts for capacity demonstration and launch agreements. It also reaffirmed support for existing commitments, such as a limited number of awardees, no payload performance limits, and an emphasis on speed and innovation. The open letter’s signatories did, however, not include Isar Aerospace or PLD Space, notable omissions.
In response to questioning from European Spaceflight, an Isar spokesperson explained that the company would not comment on why it chose to sign or not to sign particular position papers. However, Isar did provide insight on its position on the European Launcher Challenge from CCO Stella Guillen.
“The European Launcher Challenge is the first step in the right direction to support the industry, bolster Europe's space capabilities, drive economic growth, and ensure long-term competitiveness and autonomy in the space sector. Europe must guarantee fair competitive conditions and appropriate participation of German companies in the European space programs, especially in the ESA European Launcher Challenge.”
PLD Space Co-founder and CBDO Raúl Verdú explained that the company was asked to be a part of the open letter but “chose not to be part of it because it included demands that are not aligned with PLD Space's vision.” One of the primary issues on which PLD Space diverged was limiting the number of awardees.
"The ELC is a great initiative to boost the European private launcher sector. Nevertheless, Europe must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and elude a system that leads to a race for survival in which there are winners and losers. In this regard, limiting the number of awardees from the European institutional demand will only lead to the elimination of fair competition. According to our understanding, at this moment it is almost impossible to anticipate who will be able to provide reliable, profitable, and competitive launch services for Europe. We need to maintain fair competition before ESA or the EC selects the winner."
Verdú went on to explain that he felt PLD Space was well-positioned to secure a European Launcher Challenge award.
“We are convinced that PLD Space will be the European Launcher Champion. Our flight heritage, demonstrated technology, and industrial capabilities for design, manufacture, test, and launch reinforce our position as the most promising player in Europe by far.”
An under-discussed aspect of the European Launcher Challenge is the source of the programme's funding. As an optional programme, it will depend on individual countries choosing whether to allocate funding based on their own policies and self-interest. If, for instance, only French and German rocket builders are selected, what incentive does Spain or the United Kingdom have to contribute to the funding? Bids from multinational consortiums could make this easier, but the old specter of geo-return once again rears its head. While the agency has stated that these rules will be less strict for this initiative, it has yet to clearly specify how. There is a not-insignificant part of me that thinks countries could quite easily cut out the middleman and just fund their respective launch companies directly.
In his op-ed in Les Echos, MaiaSpace CEO Yohann Leroy warned that if poorly implemented, the European Launcher Challenge “could further weaken the entire European space sector.” Leroy advocated for Europe to shift from an approach focused on obligation to one rooted in results, "thereby avoiding the artificial survival of projects with no future.” While one should be cautious about statements from an interested party, it's hard to argue with those words given what the current approach has wrought.