The European Space Agency has signed contracts with two European companies in a bid to recover cargo from the International Space Station (ISS) – hopefully before what's left of it disappears into the ocean.
Gyroscope in space
ESA launched the competition in November 2023 and six months later selected a pair of winning proposals from The Exploration Company based in Germany and Italy's Thales Alenia Space. Each was awarded 25 million euros to help develop the shipping service.
The timing is tight. In 1998, ESA awarded Aérospatiale a contract to develop its final freighter, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), but it took ten years before the first of five vehicles was launched. However, the ATV was expendable and burned up during re-entry. The new vehicle will allow cargo to be returned to Earth.
Thales Alenia Space is one of the key players when it comes to European efforts in space. The company has more than four decades of heritage to draw upon and has contributed to the development of the ISS, the Lunar Gateway and the Orion Service Module.
