ESA changes course with the endorsement of governments and companies: "You can't compete with doped entities"

From left to right, Ezequiel Sánchez, Juan Tomás Hernani and Jaume Sanpera, after the interview conducted during the Seville Space Week, held between 7 and 9 November. PACO PUENTES

Beyond the commitment to complete the Ariane 6, the European launcher that is four years behind schedule and cost overruns, and the Vega C, successor to the rocket that exploded eight minutes after takeoff in 350, the last Seville summit between the European Space Agency (ESA) and EU representatives concluded with a fundamental turn: the change of course in the strategies of exploration and exploitation of space. ESA follows in the footsteps of its US counterpart (NASA) and will become a core customer of the industry, which will bear the brunt of future development beyond the atmosphere. The first challenge of this new strategy will be to build a ship to create the first Amazon in space, a service with the ability to carry and bring cargo. In a joint interview, three entrepreneurs from the New Space, as the emerging sector in this field is known, respond to the new challenge and applaud the decision to put an end to a policy that they describe as "doped entities".

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"The European space ecosystem needs to be more dynamic, more cost-effective and provide more innovative solutions," admits Germany's Anna Christmann, coordinator of her country's space policy and president of the Seville summit. This policy change involves turning ESA into an "anchor customer", a stable service contractor with sufficient financial capacity, but not an entity responsible for the development of the entire exploration and exploitation process. And there is agreement on this, according to Austrian Josef Aschbacher, ESA's Director General: "We have negotiated very hard with the 22 member states and we reached this consensus." From now on, procurement will not be based on each state's contributions to ESA, but on the basis of competition between companies.

Participants in the informal summit of the European Space Agency and the EU held in Seville last Tuesday. PACO PUENTES

Spain starts in a good position for this new race. Ezequiel Sánchez, executive president of PLD Space, the first private European company to launch a rocket from the mainland (Miura 1); Jaume Sanpera, director of Sateliot, the first entity to offer satellite connectivity for the Internet of Things (small devices); and Juan Tomás Hernani, founder and CEO of Satlantis, a global leader in miniaturized Earth observation technologies, analyze the new scenario in a joint interview. All of them have doubled or tripled turnover and employment in recent years.

Question. Is ESA's change of course a good one?

E. S. The policy of returning the contribution of the States in the form of contracts developed by specific contractors has had a long history: technological elements have been generated that have been tried to be transferred to the industry. But that can be a shortcut that, many times, makes it difficult to compete. Within the private sector, we have managed to produce elements with the same level of quality, but with very different costs and times, with the capacity to compete. The fact that there is no industry that can be doped, that is conditioned by the public sector, subsidizing certain services that are not competitive, favors competitiveness. It's a significant change. We have to focus on having a competitive industry and that requires collaboration. The private can pull and the public can complement. But we must have competition rules that allow us to develop customer-oriented elements, not from supply, but from demand.

J. S. It's the main change. Until now, ESA decided what needed to be researched, and therefore there may be a gap between what the market needs and what ESA thinks the market will need. Now, with an increasingly powerful private sector, it is feasible to let it pull by taking advantage of demand. It is very difficult for doped companies to be competitive.

J. T. H. We have to tread very carefully and know what our path is. It's about being internationally competitive, not about being a great integrator. It's not about having a satellite manufactured one hundred percent in Spain, hopefully; it's that, if that's the goal, it's because it's sold in Bulgaria, Colombia or the United Arab Emirates. Any strategy has to be focused on international competitiveness, so that we are the first, the best positioned to sell in certain markets and endure. There is China or India, so the situation is too complicated for us to do stupid things. We have to migrate from a quota model, which makes the sector very closed, a zoo, to a much more open market. Spanish public investment in space technology is key and the garden must be watered, but the objective is not the trunk, but the branches, which have to be 20 times larger than the trunk. The Spanish Space Agency has to serve as an opportunity for this institutional change that allows migration, that we give way to internationally competitive technologies.

Within the private sector, we have managed to carry out elements with the same level of quality, but with very different costs and times, with the capacity to compete

Ezequiel Sánchez, Executive President of PLD Space

Q. Can this commodification put scientific research at risk?

E. S. There are many scientific lines that are going to exist and continue with commercial exploitation. It's a matter of finding the right partner. It happens in the United States. When NASA commissions SpaceX for a larger launcher, the company needs it to deploy its constellation of satellites, but there is a collaboration to develop the vehicle that will go to the Moon or Mars or for scientific use. Elements for scientific use are being developed, but it is having a commercial exploitation behind it.

J. S. There will continue to be purely scientific projects. It's not just about buying services. Public and private contracts will allow them to develop competitively.

From left to right, Ezequiel Sánchez, Juan Tomás Hernani and Jaume Sanpera, after the interview at the Seville Space Week.PACO PUENTES

Q. What role will the Spanish Space Agency play?

E. S. It must have a national program with a cross-cutting impact across the industry and across many ministries. That can have great value in going to a national sovereignty in the space that needs to be maintained. Spain is already competitive, but it has been competitive with quotas in specific programs and contracts. Now there will be companies that are competitive in a complete system that provides service with a private part and a public part.

Q. Is Spanish spatial sovereignty possible?

J. T. H. Impossible. It's impossible across the board. The answer is clear: we need to determine the areas we would like and what we have. Today we are in a series of companies that did not exist 10 years ago and with more than 1,000 engineers who did not exist. That is a reality with which we should build the next floors.

Q. Which floors? What should be a priority?

J. T. H. What was said at the summit. You have to buy. I see Miteco [Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge] thinking about how it detects emissions of industrial gases or contaminated water and soil by its own means. It can be a big driver of the space sector. Let's think about transport, container traffic. The public sector has to play a driving role, pulling what space can give it. And we have to value the customer, the user, 1,000 times more. We have two gas companies that have joined the space because they are concerned about methane emissions. That's going to grow the sector

J. S. There is a huge market that can only be covered from space. Connectivity has been boosted only in cities. But that's only 20% of the earth's surface. We have sold five million connections outside that coverage area. That is telling you that there is an unmet need in agriculture, in the environment, in forests, in livestock, in the control of infrastructures, such as train tracks or high voltage lines or coasts or borders.

E. S. Critical infrastructure has moved into space and the State must position itself as a buyer because its critical infrastructure is going to have an impact on the lives of human beings.

There is a huge market that can only be covered from space.

Jaume Sanpera, director of Sateliot

Q. And can you compete with giants like Amazon or Space X?

J. S. There's no way to compete there. What we are doing is 5G for the Internet of Things with affordable equipment that will enable massive connectivity of any pylons or any cow. We have contracts for hundreds of refrigerated containers to act in any eventuality without losing the contents. Mountain bikes will have sensors of this type.

J. T. H. It is essential to say that we are not going to compete against the big monsters. Here the party is paid for by the sector that is making all this change: digital companies. We look for niches or we make them. There is the world of telecommunications, the market of observation and the market of positioning.

It is essential to say that we are not going to compete against the big monsters. Here the party is paid for by the sector that is making all this change: digital companies. We look for niches or we make them

Juan Tomás Hernani, Founder and CEO of Satlantis

Q. Is there enough financial muscle?

J. S. It's different in the United States, but it's also true that in Europe and, specifically, in Spain, we're able to develop things with much smaller capital. But companies need a longer maturation period to deliver results, and this is a difficulty.

E. S. It has taken us 11 years and we have faced very high barriers. It's easy to make technology, but to defend it and be competitive in the long term you have to overcome a lot of difficulties. You have to find that patient capital that can finance each of the stages.

Q. And isn't it faster and cheaper to buy from China?

J. T. H. The technological content that you bring to the competition is what will allow you to continue.

Q. And is there talent?

E. S. We are importing talent because we have very attractive companies to work for. We double the jobs every year. There is a war for talent, but there are companies that are attractive.

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