Submission Statement

This is a rare bit of good news for the European space industry. ESA currently has no independent launch capability. It's in between shutting down production of old models, and waiting for the next-gen ones to arrive. Meanwhile, the stopgap Vega 5s are out of action over safety fears, and the Soyuz backups to those can't be used because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Problems run deeper. ESA has spoken about the urgent need to pivot to reusable rockets, but is it being realistic about how to get there? The USA has a vast publicly funded military budget to support its space industry. Europe's spending is tiny in comparison. It can't expect European capital markets to support a European SpaceX if that company doesn't have the likelihood of 10's or 100's of billions of € in government (military) support the way Space X does.