— Ch. 1 · Foundations And Mergers —
European Space Agency.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
The European Space Agency emerged from the ashes of two separate organizations in 1975. Before that year, Western Europe operated under a divided system. The European Launcher Development Organisation struggled to build rockets while the European Space Research Organisation focused on satellites. Pierre Auger led the research group established on the 20th of March 1964 by an agreement signed on the 14th of June 1962. Renzo Carrobio di Carrobio served as the first Secretary General of the launcher organization from 1964 to 1971. Both groups faced chronic underfunding and diverging national interests throughout the late 1960s. ESRO launched seven research satellites between 1968 and 1972 but failed to deliver a launch vehicle. ELDO could not produce a working rocket despite years of effort. Scientists realized solely national projects would not compete with superpowers after Sputnik shocked the world in 1958. Edoardo Amaldi met with Pierre Auger to discuss a common agency just months later. Ten founding member states including Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom signed the ESA Convention in 1975. These nations deposited ratification instruments by 1980 when the convention officially came into force.
Launch Vehicle Evolution
Ariane 1 marked the beginning of Europe's independent launch capability in 1979. Commercial payloads began flying regularly from 1984 onward using this initial model. The Ariane 4 operated successfully between 1988 and 2003 establishing European leadership in commercial launches during the 1990s. A failure on the first flight of Ariane 5 occurred in 1996 but recovery followed quickly. That rocket achieved 112 successful launches until 2023 within a heavily competitive market. Development of the small-lift Vega launcher started in 1998 under Italian company Avio leadership. Vega completed its maiden launch from Kourou on the 13th of February 2012 carrying payloads up to 1500 kilograms. Full commercial exploitation of Vega began in December 2015 after years of testing. The successor vehicle Vega-C launched successfully for the first time on the 13th of July 2022 delivering LARES 2 satellite and six CubeSats. Ariane 6 entered its inaugural flight campaign on the 26th of April 2024 with the actual flight conducted on the 9th of July 2024. The first commercial launch using Ariane 6 took place on the 6th of March 2025. Launches from French Guiana provide an extra push of nearly 500 meters per second due to Earth's rotational velocity at the equator.