The European Space Agency (ESA) has, until now, attempted to return to Europe’s national governments contracts that were equal in value to their payments into ESA.

ESA is introducing a new structure called ‘Fair Return’ which will allow a business (or consortium) that wins an ESA contract to choose how the contract’s value is spent.

The new approach will apply initially to launch contracts and then to satellite manufacturing for ESA’s governmental and scientific missions.

ESA’s laudable aim is to make its contracts more competitive. The new strategy was announced lst week at the Second EO Commercialization Forum, held in Frankfurt, Germany.

Delegates to the event heard that ESA is involved in some 60 per cent of all government space related spending. ESA itself places around 1,600 contracts each year (worth a reported $6.3 billion).

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Tags: ESA, European Space Agency