The ESA is Europe's main space agency, with 23 member countries and a 50-year history. At its 2022 triennial gathering ministers agreed a budget of €17bn; at its late 2025 gathering its leaders hoped for at least €22bn ($26bn). European government spending on space is around $10bn a year, compared with $77bn for the American government. The ESA has signed agreements with 72 investors, including venture-capital firms, banks and public institutions, to boost interest in Europe's private space industry. In 2024 European space startups raised over €1.5bn, 56% more than in 2023. From 2019 to 2024 the share of global private investment in space captured by European companies grew from 3% to 22%, thanks largely to interest from defence customers.
The agency is responsible for Copernicus, an Earth-observation programme, and Galileo, a satellite-navigation system more accurate than America's GPS. In December 2024 the EU launched a €10.6bn initiative to develop iris², a satellite constellation intended to reduce dependence on SpaceX's Starlink. But iris² will have only 290 satellites against Starlink's 9,100, and will be operational in 2030 at the earliest. France's Eutelsat, which runs OneWeb, a Starlink rival, also operates in Ukraine with German funding, but cannot match Starlink's scale or prices.
"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country ..."