4. NewSpace: strengthening the public-private partnership

4.1 ESA: European decision-making body

In the 1950s, development of the space sector in Europe depended on investments made by the individual member states (France, Italy and the United Kingdom). Given the presence of the two traditional superpowers in space (United States and former USSR), European countries and their business networks had no choice but to work together. The failure of the first European partnerships in the 1960s (through the creation of ESRO, devoted to scientific missions, and ELDO, to develop the first European launcher) led in 1975 to the creation of the European Space Agency (ESA) , an intergovernmental institution. The European Union started getting involved in this field from the 1990s, particularly by conceiving space...