FIRST! stands for Future Innovation Research in Space Transportation and is an initiative of the ESA’s programme for future space transportation, FLPP.
FIRST! contributes to this overarching vision by identifying and maturing disruptive technologies in various domains, fostering performance, competitiveness, and sustainability in the future space transportation ecosystem. In pursuit of these goals, a new FIRST! campaign has been launched, focusing this time on the domain of Sustainability. Marking the inaugural phase of this new campaign, a call for ideas has just been published on ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) and will remain open until 26 May.
For this call, the scope has been expanded to include system studies that contribute to the environmental sustainability of the European space transportation sector.
As a result, this call for ideas welcomes proposals not only for technology prototyping and testing, but also for system-level studies.
The objective is to raise awareness about sustainability in future space transportation and to support concrete technology developments and system studies that contribute to the ongoing transition of the European space sector.
This initiative directly supports the ESA Green Agenda sustainability objectives, in alignment with Agenda 2025 and Strategy 2040, in two keyways:
- Maximising the sustainability benefits to society generated by our space programmes
- Minimising the environmental impact of our activities, including efforts to mitigate climate change
The goal of this call is to:
- Identify technology providersin specific technology fields relevant to environmental sustainability in future European space transportation.
- Identify entities with expertise in environmental sustainability for system studies related to future European space transportation.
- Identify space transportation service providers interested in technology disruptions and/or system studies in these areas, gathering their needs and preferences.
- Identify potential investorsinterested in key technology and system study providers for future space transportation.
For both technology and system study ideas, the following categories to be considered are:
- More environmentally sustainable space transportation ground logistics, including transport and management of components,
- More environmentally sustainable space transportation systems and technologies,
- More environmentally sustainable materials and propellants for space transportation,
- More environmentally sustainable processes for space transportation,
- Other technology disruptors and system studies in the field of environmental sustainability for space transportation.
If you are a technology or system study provider with disruptive ideas in these fields, a space transportation service provider, or an investor seeking promising advancements in this domain, join the call for ideas now open on ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP).
The upcoming phase of the FIRST! campaign includes a Pitch Day to showcase the outcomes of this OSIP call, followed by an ESA Invitation to Tender for maturation activities related to Technology Disruptors and System Studies.
We look forward to hearing from you — and welcome to FIRST!.
Apply now on OSIP