European Space Agency open competition tenders funded by Horizon Europe

In 2021 European Space Agency (ESA) and the EU signed the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA), in a ceremony to celebrate the launch of the EU Space Programme. Although ESA and the EU are distinct entities, they are progressively collaborating towards a shared goal: to strengthen Europe and benefit its citizens.

The EU Space Programme has been established through Regulation (EU) 2021/696. It bolsters the EU Space policy in the fields of Earth Observation, Satellite Navigation, Connectivity, Situational Awareness, Downstream activities, Space Research and Innovation. The EU Space Programme supports the European space industry and promotes the emergence of a European ‘New Space’ eco-system fostering entrepreneurship, innovation and new funding opportunities.

The Horizon Europe Programme is the European Union’s flagship research and innovation funding programme for the period of 2021 to 2027. As a part of the Horizon Europe Pillar II, Cluster ‘Digital, Industry and Space’, ESA frequently issues open competition tenders through its esa-star publication portal, accessible to companies and institutions from all EU member states.

Currently open tender actions on the ESA-star portal:

EGNOS System Studies for Railways

This call aims at consolidating the work initiated for promoting the usage of EGNOS in Railways, which is based on a stepped introduction of the SBAS services.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe’s regional satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) that is used to improve the performance of global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). As a part of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) modernisation plan (with an objectives of improving the localisation performance and reducing the number of trackside devices), EGNOS has been identified as key input to a future modular on-board localisation.

The objective of this activity is to support the introduction of EGNSS in Railways by consolidating the related new set of EGNOS System requirements, and developing the preliminary inputs to the SBAS/Railway System and User standards.

The closing date is 17/06/2024 with a price range of >500K EURO.

Next Generation Thruster technology for Galileo Evolutions

This call aims to is to advance a new generation of Hall Effect Thrusters (HET) to enhance the core thrust performance of the electric propulsion system for future Galileo satellites. Specifically, the project aims to finalise the design and conduct coupling tests of the thruster with a Power Processing Unit and a Flow Control Unit of the Electrical Propulsion system, representing the G2 satellite.

The closing date is 20/06/2024 with a price range of >500K EURO.

G2G PRS Security Protocol Reference Implementation

This call has the objective of developing two independent reference implementation tools for the Galileo Second Generation (G2G) PRS Security protocol within the Signal in Space Interface Control Document (ICD) framework.

The closing date is 21/06/2024 with a price range of >500K EURO.

For more information and to submit your tender

NEO and SWE Technical Support

The objective of this activity is to support ESA both in the Planetary Defence field and in the Space Weather (SWE) field. Within these fields, the aim is to support the monitoring of the industrial development activities and studies, and verification and acceptance testing of the deliverables from the industrial contracts.

The expertise within this contract includes scientific expertise on Near-Earth Objects (NEO) and Space Weather, technical expertise on NEO threat mitigation missions and technical expertise on SWE space-borne and ground-based instruments.

The tasks include support to the organisation of NEO networking activities, the definition of a portfolio of NEO mitigation missions, study of precursor services, increase networking in the NEO aspects, and more.

The closing date is 05/07/2024 with a price range of >500K EURO.

For more information and to submit your tender