Today, the ESA Council met at ministerial level in Madrid to discuss the proposal of ESA’s Director General Jan Wörner for a “United Europe in Space”.

At this meeting, a joint statement on the institutional exploitation of Ariane 6 and Vega-C was signed by Jan Wörner, ESA Director General; Roberto Battiston, President at Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI); Javier Ponce, Director General at the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI); Jean-Yves Le Gall, President at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES); Walther Pelzer, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR); and Mauro Dell’ Ambrogio, Secretary of State of the Swiss Confederation.

Through this Statement, the signatories express their full support to the European launcher industry and to Ariane 6 and Vega-C. They recognise the benefit of aggregating their institutional demand for launch services to ensure an independent, cost-effective, affordable, and reliable access to space for Europe.

The Joint Statement also establishes a high-level forum with the objective to exchange on economic and financial trends on the worldwide launch service market, launch services needs for their missions, and consolidation of a European institutional launch planning. This forum will be open to all European institutional customers of launch services and interested potential parties sharing these objectives.