By Mike Gruss
Hundreds of space officials and industry leaders will arrive at Amsterdam’s RAI complex next week to discuss the European space industry. SpaceNews is producing three days of conversations on the defense stage there, making it a good time to look at some of the themes in the European market.
Here are three to listen for:
1. What does sovereignty in space mean for Europe — and what capabilities are required to achieve it?
Sovereignty has been one of the key buzzwords in the European space industry for the past 18 months. But what does that word mean and what does it look like in practice?
One example? This story about how European Earth-observation firms are moving to fill the vacuum left by U.S. satellite imagery companies that have pulled back from sharing imagery of Iran and the area around the Gulf conflict.
“The fact that we are independent and autonomous is essential,” said Antoine Rostand, president and co-founder of French environmental intelligence company Kayrros.
Similarly, Polish space company Eycore launched Eycore-1, an Earth observation satellite equipped with the company’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology as part of a May 3 rideshare aboard a Falcon 9. But more importantly, the launch makes Eycore the second privately-owned business in Europe to own its own SAR satellite.
It’s easy to expect that this conversation will be part of topics from ISR in space to protected communications to launch.
2. What does resilience in space look like in an era of contested orbits?
Threats — including jamming and cyber — as well as electronic warfare are becoming more commonplace. For example, the U.S. Space Force recently awarded Northrop Grumman a $398 million contract to build a prototype communications satellite intended to demonstrate anti-jamming technologies for military operations in contested environments.
Much of the space industry is asking the same questions about how to strengthen resilience.
That topic will be front and center during sessions on the threats to the space community, jamming and the need for space commands. Among the scheduled speakers are Kateryna Chernohorenko, the former deputy minister of defense of Ukraine, who will be discussing Ukraine’s space imperative. On Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Daniele Donati of the Italian Air Force is expected to participate in a panel discussing how to think about a defense posture and space threats.
One thing to look out for: How will each nation's vision of resilience differ, and how much will they overlap?
3. What does a next-generation European space economy look like — and how does Europe remain globally competitive?
In a recent story, the European Space Policy Institute found that 69% of the roughly 2 billion euros in venture funding raised by European space firms over 2024 and 2025 came from rounds led by European investors. In the United States, that figure was above 90%.
“This gap is not even just a space problem — it’s been identified as a deep tech problem in Europe,” said Joรฃo Serra, ESPI’s lead of industry and finance, potentially pushing “companies to seek foreign investment out of necessity and not so much out of choice.”
SmallSat Europe will feature panels on buying commercial space services during wartime and nurturing startups for the space ecosystem.
But perhaps central to these concerns is the launch bottleneck: How can Europe’s organizations put their national security satellites on orbit using European rockets? On Wednesday, representatives from the European Space Agency, Isar and PLD Space are expected to discuss.
If you're not joining us in Amsterdam, look forward to our daily newsletters with coverage from our team on the ground there. And we'll share more takeaways from all these conversations – and some recordings on our Space Minds podcast – as this summer.
If you will be at the RAI, join us Wednesday after the day's programming ends for a happy hour we're hosting nearby. Be sure to grab our daily print editions on Wednesday and Thursday next week, and stop by booth #713 to meet our team.
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