Europe's aerospace companies cooperate to bring down the cost of spacecraft
The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a 50-million-euro initiative to bring together Europe's leading aerospace companies in a four year deal. Companies who usually compete with each other for business will now pool their resources under a system that should lead to more efficient production. Instead of building spacecrafts to exact specifications - a traditional but expensive approach -aerospace companies will be encouraged to build spacecraft with systems that can be reused. This can be done, for example, through the development of 'intelligent' systems for satellites. An intelligent system is a multipurpose component that can perform the same tasks as several conventional units. This method should reduce the number of components and the size and mass of individual spacecraft, as well as bringing down the cost of missions. Though the companies will be encouraged change their methods, ESA will not tell them what to build: Anton Linssen of ESA said: 'We have not given them any mission requirements. It's for industry to tell us what they want to do to make spacecraft lighter and perform better.' 'Lighter intelligent systems reduce total mission costs so perhaps we can launch more missions', he continued, 'Alternatively, we can add more experiments to spaceprobes. Either way, we get more science.'