ESA Has Difficulties in Securing Agreement on ISS

According to officials from the European Space Agency (ESA) and European governments, it would appear that no consensus has been achieved among Member States to support the functioning of the International Space Station (ISS) beyond 2015, until 2020.

NASA proposed that the life span of the orbital facility be extended from its planned 2015 deorbiting to at least 2020, so that the international partners which built it could enjoy the fruits of their labor for longer.

But the American space agency cannot possibly support the operations of the ISS all on its own, given the tremendously complex logistics and costs involved.

The biggest partners (ESA, NASA, RosCosmos, JAXA and CSA) need to be in agreement about continuing to support the station's operations, if the plan is to materialize.

Unlike any of the other actors involved in the international plan, ESA cannot make decisions about its future without first consulting representatives of governments from the states making it up.

This is a matter of politics more than anything else. The reason why the agency could not secure any consensus at its most recent meeting was because government representatives were distracted with bickering over financial support for Arianespace.

The French company is Europe's commercial launch services consortium, and the manufacturer of the Ariane 5 heavy-lift delivery system. This rocket is used to perform all heavy launches on the continent.

Given the recent stall, a decision will only be made in March 2011, when ESA governments again meet up to discuss future plans for the agency, Space reports.

Even though no clear-cut decision was made at the closed-door December 15-16 session, the ESA ruling council did express its general support for continuing the use of the ISS beyond 2015. Officials do not expect the prolonging of the station's life to be a problem.

“In the resolution we adopted at the council meeting, our member states indicated that they would maintain their commitments under the IGA,” explained in a December 17 interview Simonetta di Pippo, the space station director at ESA.

But she also spoke about how the first launch of a rocket/capsule combo built by a private company changes things. This year saw Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) launch its Falcon 9 rocket twice and its Dragon space capsule on its maiden flight.

“SpaceX certainly got our attention. This is a kind of revolution. We now know they can make it, and so we have to concentrate, on the government side, on new developments,” di Pippo explained.

“We cannot just stick with our ATV now that the commercial sector is able to do this. Having visited the SpaceX facilities, I am not surprised by their success. But we need to react to it,” she concluded.