Geographic return

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Geographic Return or Geo-Return is a fundamental pillar in the financing of the European Space Agency , according to which all member states receive the majority of their contributions back in the form of industrial contracts.

principle

ESA member states pay a membership fee to ESA to enable the development of high technologies and the operation of space travel for European nations. As part of the Geo-Return, the member states receive high-tech space contracts of the same value to their industries in proportion to their contributions.

Smaller European countries are generally unable to submit competitive offers for space contracts. However, Geo-Return guarantees you order volumes through the quotas stored. Geo-Return therefore does not aim to increase the efficiency of both the financial resources used and the project and production chains, but pursues other goals such as the development of high-tech sectors in all member states. The agreement is therefore a major incentive, especially for smaller European countries, to be a member of the ESA, as the contributions do not only benefit competitive countries.

The repatriation is calculated every five years, through which 85% of the ESA budget is returned to European industry. Activities carried out on behalf of other institutional partners are excluded from this return obligation. The distribution of such contracts follows the space skills of European countries, which, however, come very close to the contributions.

Exception Ariane 6

During the development of Ariane 6 , the geo-return principle is suspended [out of date] . The reason for this lies, above all because of the competitor SpaceX and its partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket , in the highly competitive international launch vehicle market . In order to survive in this market, ESA decided to take all the necessary measures to remain competitive.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Clemens Rumpf: Increased competition will challenge ESA's space authority. In: The Space Review. February 2, 2015, accessed October 10, 2019 .
  2. THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY. In: esa. January 2017, accessed October 10, 2019 .