A word from the Head of ESA Space Solutions, Nick Appleyard
We are revisiting our priorities. What in our lives is most important to us? Which services do we really need? Which can we manage without? What do we value in our relationships with our families, our neighbours, our jobs? What is the role of technology in our home, school and work lives? How reliable and universal is our access to it?
We have also realised our effect on our environment, by seeing the dramatic change when that influence is removed even for a short time. And we have paid close attention to vulnerabilities in the systems that we rely on to keep us healthy, comfortable and productive.
We are looking for new answers. Solutions that are resilient, which mix local and global, and which balance the economy with our social needs and with the environment.
This happens at a time when space technology is becoming available to us all on a day to day basis. Three quarters of us have a smartphone in our pockets – we carry a satellite receiver with us throughout the day. Images from space show what is happening around us. Signals from satellites locate us and connect us, whenever we can see the sky.
Space is a resource for everyday businesses. Start-up companies can now launch their own spacecraft! But you don’t need to be a space company to make use of all this technology. Satellites can guide decisions, enable automation, monitor, connect and inform, whatever we are doing. Even the International Space Station is now available for non-space businesses to use!
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
That’s you. That’s us. Space can help to answer your questions. Let us help you.
You’ll find us at ESA Space Solutions.