Europe's Exploration Ambition

Day: Wednesday 7 October
Time: 14:50 - 15:35
Location: D3 - NEST Congress and Exhibition Centre

Europe is entering the most consequential decade for exploration in its history. At the ESA Council at Ministerial Level in Bremen in November 2025, Member States approved the largest contributions in the Agency's history, over €22 billion, translating the long-term ambitions of ESA's Strategy 2040 into funded programmes. What remains to be settled is the exploration roadmap itself, and 2026 is the year it will be decided.

This Global Networking Forum session brings the Director General of ESA together with the heads of CNES, DLR, ASI, UKSA, AEE and ESA CWG chair at a decisive moment: after the International Space Summit in Paris, and before the ESA Interim Ministerial Meeting (IMM) in Rome. Panellists will set out what Europe intends to explore in the coming decade, and what they will ask their ministers to fund in December: Europe's lunar ambitions and the Argonaut lander, its role in low Earth orbit after the ISS, and the open question of autonomous European access to space for crew and cargo.

The conversation will address the hard questions alongside the visionary ones, how Europe balances partnership with strategic autonomy, how agencies work with a maturing commercial sector rather than around it, how exploration ambition survives contact with national budget cycles, and what Europe offers international partners, including emerging space nations, as a reliable and open collaborator.