preparing Europe for independent routine access and return from LEO with a reusable system able to transport payloads for several different applications through Space Rider (based on Vega C), and activities involving Dream Chaser (based on Ariane 64);
PARIS — The British government has emphatically endorsed its investment in the 22-nation European Space Agency and rejected a parliamentary proposal that its space budget be more evenly divided between ESA and a national program.Countering the centrifugal trend in Europe — highlighted by the U.K. decision to quit the European Union — the government reaffirmed that Brexit will have no effect on the UK role in ESA.“The UK’s investment in the European Space Agency is an important part of our overall investment in space, from which we obtain excellent value,” the government said in a written response to questions from the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee, which were published Nov. 24.ESA “is a membership organization which contains members from both within and outside the European Union, and the UK will continue to be a member of the European Space Agency after the UK leaves the European Union.”The government’s statement, coming just a week before ESA ministers meet in Lucerne, Switzerland, to debate a multi-year funding package of around $12 billion, will be music to the ears of ESA officials always wary that the zero-sum-calculus of European national budgets means that more national spending translates into less ESA investment.
Quotepreparing Europe for independent routine access and return from LEO with a reusable system able to transport payloads for several different applications through Space Rider (based on Vega C), and activities involving Dream Chaser (based on Ariane 64);http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Ministerial_Council_2016/Media_backgrounder_ESA_s_Ministerial_2016_in_LucerneNeat.....