I appreciate the overview of capabilities out of my usual lanes.
I like more Western space power--especially launch capability--to counter China's rising space ambitions. We're in this together. But I hope European efforts in space don't slow needed conventional European combat power restoration.
And as an American, my observation of European worries about America's commitment to Europe is that the worries are unjustified. Trans-Atlantic relations have fluctuated. Over time, elements of the left and right here have questioned NATO. Our alliance has survived and will endure despite those questions because a friendly Europe is a vital American interest. We're just sparring over details of how that relationship functions that seem huge now.
But please don't let European space capabilities mean European Union space capabilities. I don't trust the EU. Never have. I'd much rather have Union Jack emblems--and other national insignia--on the platforms.
Fundamentally, do I think that the US will make a clean break with European NATO? No. Has much changed on a day-to-day operational level? Absolutely not. But you can understand why European nations don't want to take any chances and claw back the level of dependency following the current direction of travel. Its better for the alliance as a whole, frankly.
You're eight months in. The operational level impacts take time to percolate down.
If you happen to know people working in places stateside that rely in any way on the feds, they'll tell you what's coming. Pentagon will be insulated for a time, but by 2027? Beware.
There are a lot of people who will always insist that Nothing Really Ever Changes in American politics and policy. Same was said about the USSR once upon a time. A race is on that no US ally can risk losing.
I think that's a fair NATO assessment. I certainly understand the European concern about dependency. Even close allies will have their national objectives diverge at least once in a while.
My concern is that restoring European ground combat capabilities will be slowed by "duplicating" American capabilities too quickly. But perhaps the cost of space assets isn't really high enough for that concern. And factors other than cost may be the speed bump for ground force expansion.
Still, even a European-wide space capability will carry over at least some of the problem of relying on American capabilities. When one country wants to use the European space capabilities, other European countries or the EU itself may have a veto. Structuring the command of the European space capability will be as important as creating the capabilities.
I've enjoyed the comments here! Much to think about.
OTOH, it's true (from what people in the know say) that at a professional level the cooperation within NATO between European NATO militaries and US counterparts is much more less dramatic and also continuing than what politicians' hot takes would imply.
However, ISR/intelligence even more so than air cover is an exquisite point of squeeze for US to use at any point. Same even for Elon's Starlink. This is all due to how much more advanced US is on this front because Europe did very little (somewhat understandably). Let's be honest that without Elon/SpaceX even US would it be in a much worse position.
But in any case, Europe should develop sovereign space/ISR capabilities because it feeds into everything else military, because it can, it makes commercial sense to do so and it has downstream benefits in other high tech areas.
Not sure what 'not trusting the EU' means but in any case you need the EU economic might/coordination/incentives/etc to pull this off. Keeping at national level kills the effort and no country wants to keep it at the national level (the costs would be too much). Similarly in US, whether you're talking about military stuff or space stuff it's a many states effort.
Not to belabour the point but here's EU commissioner for defence and space yesterday on how defence readiness is impossible without space space readiness
Europe will get proper launch capability before it gets a 6th generation fighter jet. Because outside huge payload capacity stuff like Starship/New Glen, the barrier of entry for small and medium launch capabilities is sufficiently low nowadays. The tech isn't that sophisticated.
Like others said elsewhere making fighter jets (and their engines specifically) is very very hard, you don't stand up an industry for that easily. Industry for small and medium launch vehicles and the necessary pads is not like that. The reason Europe doesn't have one is because it took its eye off the ball AND relied on US.
Even Ariane is already testing the reusable version.
And then even the money for this is not much compared to some other stuff in military procurement.
ICEYE’s current Gen-4 SAR satellites are ~120 kg each. Vega-C, for example, which is already flying, has 2500kg payload capacity to SSO (sun synchronous orbit) LEO - more global coverage, so that's at least 15 of these that it can launch in one go. Vega-C SSMS is 40-50 mil per mission.
Mid-inclination LEO (more focused on Europe) is even cheaper.
Falcon 9 rideshare program (which ICEYE) charges about 6000 USD/kg. European launchers will initially be 7-15k per kg but it will get cheaper fast.
As per the recent GAO report on the issues and risks with the F-35 program, the total cost of the project over its lifetime is 2 trillions.
SpaceX Falcon 9 (vehicle, including Dragon + facilities) development was at a push around 800 million
For Rocket Lab Electron or Firefly Alpha's development it's about 100 millions. Even if you look at the total investment raised by either Rocket Lab or Firefly so far (and they're both working on next gen launch vehicles) you still only get to 1-2 billions each
Also meant to say that whilst Kourou/French Guyana site is better than the US sites for GTO/GEO, the northern sites like Andoya (Norway), Esrange (Sweden) and even Saxavord (UK) are much better for the SSO/polar that the ISR stuff uses. So Europe has lots of advantages, just needs to get going.
And then you can also get Canada and Japan involved (Japan's H3 already taking European commercial customers). And once you've got the industry stood up give rideshare space to the Asian countries in exchange for the stuff they already do very well, as documented in previous article
"Allowing Europe, like Tim Curry, to escape to SPACE!"
I understood that reference 😎👍
I appreciate the overview of capabilities out of my usual lanes.
I like more Western space power--especially launch capability--to counter China's rising space ambitions. We're in this together. But I hope European efforts in space don't slow needed conventional European combat power restoration.
And as an American, my observation of European worries about America's commitment to Europe is that the worries are unjustified. Trans-Atlantic relations have fluctuated. Over time, elements of the left and right here have questioned NATO. Our alliance has survived and will endure despite those questions because a friendly Europe is a vital American interest. We're just sparring over details of how that relationship functions that seem huge now.
But please don't let European space capabilities mean European Union space capabilities. I don't trust the EU. Never have. I'd much rather have Union Jack emblems--and other national insignia--on the platforms.
Fundamentally, do I think that the US will make a clean break with European NATO? No. Has much changed on a day-to-day operational level? Absolutely not. But you can understand why European nations don't want to take any chances and claw back the level of dependency following the current direction of travel. Its better for the alliance as a whole, frankly.
You're eight months in. The operational level impacts take time to percolate down.
If you happen to know people working in places stateside that rely in any way on the feds, they'll tell you what's coming. Pentagon will be insulated for a time, but by 2027? Beware.
There are a lot of people who will always insist that Nothing Really Ever Changes in American politics and policy. Same was said about the USSR once upon a time. A race is on that no US ally can risk losing.
I think that's a fair NATO assessment. I certainly understand the European concern about dependency. Even close allies will have their national objectives diverge at least once in a while.
My concern is that restoring European ground combat capabilities will be slowed by "duplicating" American capabilities too quickly. But perhaps the cost of space assets isn't really high enough for that concern. And factors other than cost may be the speed bump for ground force expansion.
Still, even a European-wide space capability will carry over at least some of the problem of relying on American capabilities. When one country wants to use the European space capabilities, other European countries or the EU itself may have a veto. Structuring the command of the European space capability will be as important as creating the capabilities.
I've enjoyed the comments here! Much to think about.
OTOH, it's true (from what people in the know say) that at a professional level the cooperation within NATO between European NATO militaries and US counterparts is much more less dramatic and also continuing than what politicians' hot takes would imply.
However, ISR/intelligence even more so than air cover is an exquisite point of squeeze for US to use at any point. Same even for Elon's Starlink. This is all due to how much more advanced US is on this front because Europe did very little (somewhat understandably). Let's be honest that without Elon/SpaceX even US would it be in a much worse position.
But in any case, Europe should develop sovereign space/ISR capabilities because it feeds into everything else military, because it can, it makes commercial sense to do so and it has downstream benefits in other high tech areas.
Not sure what 'not trusting the EU' means but in any case you need the EU economic might/coordination/incentives/etc to pull this off. Keeping at national level kills the effort and no country wants to keep it at the national level (the costs would be too much). Similarly in US, whether you're talking about military stuff or space stuff it's a many states effort.
Not to belabour the point but here's EU commissioner for defence and space yesterday on how defence readiness is impossible without space space readiness
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_25_2207
'Rogue ejaculations' HAHAHA
Europe will get proper launch capability before it gets a 6th generation fighter jet. Because outside huge payload capacity stuff like Starship/New Glen, the barrier of entry for small and medium launch capabilities is sufficiently low nowadays. The tech isn't that sophisticated.
Like others said elsewhere making fighter jets (and their engines specifically) is very very hard, you don't stand up an industry for that easily. Industry for small and medium launch vehicles and the necessary pads is not like that. The reason Europe doesn't have one is because it took its eye off the ball AND relied on US.
Even Ariane is already testing the reusable version.
And then even the money for this is not much compared to some other stuff in military procurement.
ICEYE’s current Gen-4 SAR satellites are ~120 kg each. Vega-C, for example, which is already flying, has 2500kg payload capacity to SSO (sun synchronous orbit) LEO - more global coverage, so that's at least 15 of these that it can launch in one go. Vega-C SSMS is 40-50 mil per mission.
Mid-inclination LEO (more focused on Europe) is even cheaper.
Falcon 9 rideshare program (which ICEYE) charges about 6000 USD/kg. European launchers will initially be 7-15k per kg but it will get cheaper fast.
That's a relief: "And then even the money for this is not much compared to some other stuff in military procurement."
As per the recent GAO report on the issues and risks with the F-35 program, the total cost of the project over its lifetime is 2 trillions.
SpaceX Falcon 9 (vehicle, including Dragon + facilities) development was at a push around 800 million
For Rocket Lab Electron or Firefly Alpha's development it's about 100 millions. Even if you look at the total investment raised by either Rocket Lab or Firefly so far (and they're both working on next gen launch vehicles) you still only get to 1-2 billions each
Also meant to say that whilst Kourou/French Guyana site is better than the US sites for GTO/GEO, the northern sites like Andoya (Norway), Esrange (Sweden) and even Saxavord (UK) are much better for the SSO/polar that the ISR stuff uses. So Europe has lots of advantages, just needs to get going.
And then you can also get Canada and Japan involved (Japan's H3 already taking European commercial customers). And once you've got the industry stood up give rideshare space to the Asian countries in exchange for the stuff they already do very well, as documented in previous article
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Types_of_orbits