ESA Members Defer Funding Guarantee for Airbus-backed Data-relay System

摘要

European Space Agency governments, in a surprise setback, failed to approve a funding guarantee for the European Data Relay System (EDRS) during a late-August meeting, leaving the program in limbo until a fresh attempt set for Sept. 17, government and industry officials said. ESA officials declined Sept. 5 to discuss the effort beyond confirming that the "extra delay is until mid-September … [and] is required for ESA and some member states to set up the framework proposed." EDRS is ESA's most ambitious public-private partnership insofar as it is attempting to create, with Airbus Defence and Space as the industrial program manager, a market that does not yet exist in relaying Earth observation satellite data to satellites in higher, geostationary orbit via laser-optical links to speed their reception by ground users.