European Space Agency plans to engage in military satellites

The European Space Agency (ESA) will in November ask its member countries to contribute "roughly €1 billion" for the development of a military-grade reconnaissance satellite network, the organisation's director general, Josef Aschbacher, told Euractiv.

The funding plan will see ESA work on an EU programme that aims to help militaries and governments counter threats and manage natural disasters by beaming ultra-high-resolution optical imagery back to Earth at intervals of under 30 minutes.

"Strategically, it is very important because it's really dedicated to a new group of users, that means security and defence users," said Aschbacher, speaking on the sidelines of the European Space Policy Institute's annual conference in Vienna.

The bloc's other space programmes, such as Galileo, a GPS alternative for geo-navigation, and Copernicus, which is used to monitor the effects of climate change, are principally used for civilian purposes.