At the recent Space Community Days event, Géraldine Naja, ESA’s Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Competitiveness, delivered a compelling overview of the agency’s achievements and strategic direction as it celebrates 50 years of European space cooperation.
Reflecting on 2024, Géraldine Naja underscored ESA’s major milestones: the successful return-to-flight of Vega-C and the inaugural launch of Ariane 6 restored Europe’s autonomous access to space. ESA also launched 13 satellites, including EarthCARE, Sentinel-1C, and Hera, and concluded two astronaut missions, while five new career astronauts graduated.
Naja spotlighted ESA’s 2025 timeline, including Slovenia as a new Member State, the launch of the Biomass mission on Vega-C, the opening of the HPC Facility at ESRIN, and the Axiom-4 mission. These initiatives are part of a broader roadmap leading to CM25 in Bremen, where ESA’s Strategy 2040 will be further shaped.
Central to Géraldine Naja’s message was ESA’s evolving role in commercialisation. She presented the new ACCESS programme, designed to accelerate the competitiveness of Europe’s space sector. Building on the existing programmes ScaleUp and BASS, ACCESS supports companies from start-up to scale-up, offering zero-equity funding, technical and commercial support, and access to ESA’s extensive networks.
Géraldine Naja also highlighted ESA’s role as an anchor customer, citing examples like Copernicus Contributing Missions and the LEO cargo return service. These efforts aim to foster a thriving commercial ecosystem, reduce time-to-contract, and increase transparency.
In closing, Géraldine Naja emphasised ESA’s five strategic goals: protecting the planet, exploring space, strengthening European autonomy and resilience, boosting growth and competitiveness, and inspiring Europe. Her presentation was a call to action for industry partners to contribute their capabilities and innovation to shape the future of European space.