Europe Haggles Over Cost Of Space Ambitions

Brand-new ESA projects include a bid to help prevent costly satellites being destroyed by space debris.

European nations wrangled over funding for the International Space Station on Tuesday at a meeting to divide up 10 billion euros of space spending at a time when the planet is gripped by economic crisis.

Science ministers from the 18 members of the European Space Agency and Canada meet every three years to agree funds for the agency, which is beefing up its ambitions in space to catch up with attention-grabbing initiatives from China and India.

The agency's 10.4 billion euro ($13.4 billion) overall funding request comes in the midst of financial turmoil and fears of recession but is likely to be almost entirely approved by politicians, officials said.

"Ministers were very positive," ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain told a news conference after the first of two days of talks. "Some said we have to go against the economic cycle and that this is the best time to invest in space."

However, Germany was at odds with other countries including France over Europe's share of spending on the space station, just one of the projects to be covered by the funding package.

Germany, which built Europe's Columbus module for the station and whose industry benefits from the 10-year-old orbital outpost, asked nations to spend more than the combined total of 1.4 billion euros over 5 years budgeted by ESA, delegates said.

France, which hosts the launch pads for Ariane rockets at Kourou in French Guiana, historically puts a greater focus on maintaining an autonomous European launch capability.

"Germany and France do not have the same priorities but in this meeting all our priorities can be reached," French Higher Education and Research Minister Valerie Pecresse said.

She said ministers had agreed to modernise the Ariane 5 space rocket and begin preparing its successor.

PROBING MARS

About a third of ESA's 3 billion euro annual budget comprises mandatory spending on the agency's scientific projects such as Europe's share of the Hubble space telescope.

The rest must be paid for by passing the hat round between nations at the ESA conference table.

Key ESA projects include a 1.2 billion euro expanded version of an existing project called ExoMars to land a rover on the surface of Mars and drill down 2 metres (6.6 feet) into the soil to take soundings. The cost has roughly doubled since an earlier plan.

ESA wants member states to pay for 1 billion of the total cost and hopes to cover the remaining 200 million euros through co-operation with the United States and Russia.

Other proposals submitted by ESA include a request for funds to study the development of an unmanned re-entry vehicle dubbed ARV to bring cargo back from the International Space Station. The move is needed as the U.S. Space Shuttle nears retirement.

Europe sent up its first one-way resupply vehicle known as ATV to the 10-year-old structure earlier this year but unlike the ATV, which burns up on re-entry, the ARV would land safely.

Brand-new ESA projects include a bid to help prevent costly satellites being destroyed by space debris.

Clouds of debris in orbit -- some of it just a few centimetres thick -- pose a threat to infrastructure from telecommunication satellites to the space station itself.

Europe relies on data from U.S. military early warning command NORAD to dodge millions of pieces of trackable debris in orbit. But ESA has been charged with developing Europe's own security measures in co-operation with the European Union.

ESA also wants to develop a system called EDRS for sharing data between satellites to allow them to beam information back to the ground more quickly.

Both systems are designed for civil use but will use dual technology that could ultimately have applications in security or defence under the auspices of Europe's defence agencies.

ESA ministers decided on Tuesday to bridge a gap in funding between different generations of satellites for another major project to monitor the health of the environment, called GMES.

In a major commercial project that could also have security implications, ESA is also partly responsible for developing the Galileo navigation system on behalf of the European Commission, in a rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System.