The European Space Agency (ESA) will ask its member states over €18 billion at their upcoming Ministerial Council, the ESA's most important decision-making body, to finance their programs over the next three years.
This is what the agency's Director General Joseph Aschbacher announced on the first day of the Space Conference at the World Satellite Business Week in Paris.
"The situation is extremely difficult because it is not the right conditions for a Ministerial Council," Aschbacher explained, referencing the Russian war in Ukraine.
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Just as the majority of European countries were dependent on Russian gas, this meant that many of the ESA's missions were unable to launch such as various satellites as well as the agency's Exomars mission, which costs over €1 billion.
As a result, negotiations on the new budget are ongoing although the ESA wants their new Ariane-6 vehicle to be launched "as soon as possible."
