EU space commissioner warns of 2031 rocket shortfall
What happened
EU Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said on 23 September that Europe needs 14 Ariane 6 launches by 2031, against current output of 10 a year. Vega-C output would need to rise from six launches yearly to eight by 2030. Kubilius told the European Commission's second Access to Space Conference in Brussels that total government launch demand will reach 62 missions by 2034. That is roughly six times today's level, driven mostly by Galileo and Copernicus. He called for a fivefold rise in the EU's 2028-2034 defence and space budget and promised an access-to-space action plan next year.
Read-across for SES
SES's own IRIS² and meoSphere satellites already compete for the same constrained Ariane 6 and Vega-C manifests over the next several years. An EU commissioner naming a hard numerical gap between government demand and rocket-maker output strengthens the case for new non-SpaceX capacity SES's launch schedule depends on. It also strengthens the case for the budget increase Kubilius is seeking, and underscores how much of Europe's sovereign-space ambition rests on infrastructure it has not yet built.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: <9h] EU Space Commissioner Kubilius said Europe will need 14 Ariane 6 launches by 2031, 40% more than today's output of 10 a year. SES's own IRIS² satellites compete for that same scarce capacity.