Consolidate European commercial SST capabilities on sensors
| Specific conditions | |
| Expected EU contribution per project | The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 15.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts. |
| Indicative budget | The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 15.00 million. |
| Type of Action | Research and Innovation Actions |
| Admissibility conditions | The conditions are described in General Annex A. The following exceptions apply: The page limit of the application is 50 pages. |
| Eligibility conditions | The conditions are described in General Annex B. The following exceptions apply: In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security, namely avoiding a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to build on its strengths and to carefully assess and address strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States. Proposals including entities established in countries outside the scope specified in the call/topic/action will be ineligible. For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees positively assessed by their eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security. Entities assessed as high-risk suppliers of mobile network communication equipment within the meaning of ‘restrictions for the protection of European communication networks’ (or entities fully or partially owned or controlled by a high-risk supplier) cannot submit guarantees.[[The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that: a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action; b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate; c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.]] If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). |
| Procedure | The procedure is described in General Annex F. The following exceptions apply: The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project. The evaluation committee could be partially composed by representatives of EU institutions. |
| Legal and financial set-up of the Grant Agreements | The rules are described in General Annex G. The following exceptions apply: The beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP). The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. Activities proposed by third parties (FSTP proposals) are to be selected according to selection criteria agreed between the granting authority and the beneficiaries. A “third party”, submitting a FSTP proposal, could be either an entity or a consortium of entities. In accordance with article 207 of the EU Financial Regulation the maximum amount to be granted to each third party can exceed EUR 60,000. This derogation is justified by the fact that the foreseen actions carried out by third parties will target breakthrough techniques and technologies to disruptively improve SST sensors performance and/or operations. Indeed, costly hardware (such as radar, optical…) development and implementation tests are sought on this topic. The minimum amount of each FSTP proposal is expected to be in the range of EUR 2 million. The funding rate for each FSTP proposal is 80%. Third parties shall be asked to co-finance 20% of the total amount of each FSTP proposal. The total amount of the EU contribution supporting FSTP proposals is expected to be in the range of EUR 14,5 million As per Article 16.2 (Ownership of results) of the EU Grants: AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement (V1.0– 01.05.2024) the granting authority does not obtain ownership of the results produced under the action. Similarly, the IPR generated in FSTP activities cannot be retained by the beneficiaries. |
The rationale behind the proposed set up of this topic is the following:
The EUSST Partnership (i.e. the identified beneficiary), foreseen in the Space Regulation (art. 54 -EU 2021/696) composed of 15 Member States, has been created (cf. Implementing Decision 2022/1245) in 2022. The EUSST Partnership is entrusted to contribute with their national assets to enhance capabilities to monitor, track and identify space objects and space debris with the aim of further increasing the performance and autonomy of capabilities under the SST sub-component at Union level.
The implementation of the Space Regulation (cf. EU 2021/696) provisions related to the SST sub-component, foresees the incorporation of commercial capabilities (Art. 54(1.a) of the Space Regulation) so to complement national capabilities. The EUSST Partnership (i.e. the FSTP granting authority) will launch an open call for proposals in order to select the best FSTP proposals within the proposed scope.
The current set up of this topic allows to support in priority the development of innovative commercial sensors. Nevertheless, in case of low private sector participation on FSTP actions the beneficiary (i.e. EUSST Partnership) will be able to use the remaining budget for the upgrade and/or development of national sensors applying the same proposed co-funding scheme and scope. This logic is reflected in the wording : «The beneficiary MAY provide financial support to third parties (FSTP)”.
Hardware development, prototyping and high TRL requested at the end of the FSTP action (at least TRL 5) requires important budgets, well beyond 60k€. Furthermore, it is expected that, at the end of FSTP support, the beneficiaries will pursue the developments in order to reach the operational stage hence contributing to the overall EUSST sensors network.
We foresee to have at least 4 FSTP projects ; if there are only, or less than, 4 FSTP projects, the remaining budget will be used to upgrade national sensors with novel technologies & techniques. The same cofinancing scheme will be applied to national sensors upgrades.
The overall objective of this Topic is to stimulate fast integration of R&D technologies and technics in operational sensors. Co-funding from Third Parties is expected in order to confirm their engagement towards the achievement of operational SST capacities. This means that :
- Out of the 15M€ indicative budget, 0,5M€ is expected to cover EUSST coordination activities (e.g. drafting the FSTP call for proposals SoW, managing the reviews of each FSTP action).
- Coordination activities are funded at 100%.
Expected Outcome: Projects developed under this topic are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- To reinforce European strategic autonomy and resilience in space surveillance and tracking capabilities (sensors and associated data processing) by leveraging innovation and competitiveness of the European industry and start-ups
- To develop and/or improve existing commercially available assets and SST-related technologies fostering competition and market development, allowing the European SST industry and start-ups to be competitive on global markets.
- To complement, as defined by EUSST Partnership’s architecture studies, existing Member States patrimonial SST capacities with European privately-owned ones, assuring interoperability and adopting global standards.
- To improve European SST operational capabilities by supporting the extension of space-tracking infrastructure located outside continental Europe.
- To prepare EU industry to capture new SST markets in the domains by proposing competitive, cutting-edge sensors.
Scope: The following sensors and data processing R&I activities, funded through FSTP, should be addressed to tackle the above expected outcomes:
- Novel, cost-effective sensor concepts and technologies capable of detecting, tracking and surveying objects in order to improve the state-of-the-art performance according to the target orbit regime (e.g. less than 10 cm in LEO, 30 cm in GEO). Note: Priority should be given to projects focusing on LEO detection even though preeminent proposals in other orbit regimes will be considered.
- Autonomous sensor concepts to increase operational robustness, to reduce response times, to reduce operation costs, amongst others.
- Tools, techniques, and technologies necessary to significantly improve the efficiency of future or existing commercial sensor’s network by streamlining the scheduling and tasking of its sensors.
- State-of-the-art technologies and concepts improving sensors’ tracking and surveillance performances (measurements quality (noise; bias; measurements rates ...) tracks accuracy (track noise; track duration...) sensors’ field of view…
- Cost-effective tracking and/or surveillance sensor concepts expanding orbital coverage of Member States patrimonial SST capacities and/or meeting commercial market needs.
- Any promising technology for precise tracking and data processing.
FSTP proposals are expected to promote cooperation between different actors (industry, SMEs and research institutions) and consider opportunities to quickly turn technological innovation into commercial use in the space sector.
FSTP proposals are expected to start between TRL 2 and TRL 4 and reach at least TRL 5 by the end of the project. The reference TRL (Technology Readiness Level) definition is the ISO 16290:2013 applicable to the space sector.
FSTP proposals under this topic should explore synergies and be complementary to already funded actions in the context of technology development at component level. In particular, it is expected that FSTP proposals make use of existing European technologies and/or building blocks at component level contributing to European non-dependence and strengthen competitiveness. Furthermore, proposed activities should be complementary to national activities and activities funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Financial support to third parties is expected to start no later than 7 months after the start date of the grant.
Indicative timetable: in quarter Q4 of year 2025.