ESA Unveils Lunar Initiative with Space Resources Accelerator

The Luxembourg-based European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) has announced that the European Space Agency (ESA) mandated it to conceptualise the world’s first business accelerator dedicated to the lunar economy, together with a network of partners.

Alexander Godlewski, newly-appointed Business Accelerator Officer, presented the Space Resources Accelerator on Thursday 18 January 2024, at ESA’s Space for Inspiration conference. The conference is a B2B annual gathering that unites visionaries, entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors at the forefront of commercial space exploration. This year’s focus was on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and lunar economies. The accelerator is an initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA) and is part of the BSGN Industry Accelerators network. The programme aims to accompany the Moon champions of tomorrow; it is dedicated to scale-ups with demonstrated successful business models in terrestrial and/or space markets and with the capacity to develop applications for the emerging lunar economy. The accelerator is currently in its conceptualisation phase and the ESRIC will invite partners to join the initiative in the coming months, with the implementation of the project expected in 2025.

“In 2021, ESRIC launched the Start-up Support Programme, the world’s first incubator programme entirely dedicated to early-stage ventures in the space resources domain. With the new Space Resources Accelerator, ESRIC will provide a pathway for partners with commercial projects to accelerate their activity in this dynamic and forward-facing field […]“ said Kathryn Hadler, Director of ESRIC.

In the last couple of years, the Moon has gathered considerable attention, with eight countries so far having landed on, orbited or flown by it. According to ESRIC, the Earth’s natural satellite represents a realistic objective compared to the more ambitious one of Mars, playing a foundational role in preparing the next missions to the red planet. NASA’s Artemis Programme aims to bring astronauts back to the Moon in 2026 to build a presence on the natural satellite and thousands of humans could follow, eventually living permanently on the Moon. This endeavour is expected to generate strong demand for multiple applications across energy, healthcare and construction in which commercial players will play an increasingly important role.

“We need to accelerate the development of a sustainable lunar economy, and supporting commercial projects is a key step forward in this direction. The aim is to bring such projects to terrestrial demonstration in markets that are already available on Earth today and ultimately to the Moon. The model that we are proposing provides the right balance. ESA will make available funding to support the growth of commercial solutions that are supported by credible business cases, allowing to bring on-board private investors to support these ventures,” declared Francesco Liucci, Innovation Management Officer at ESA.

With an estimated €170 billion cumulated market value and close to 2 million jobs created in the next fifteen-to-twenty years, the lunar economy represents an “outstanding long-term economic opportunity” which is heavily backed by governments, ESRIC emphasised. The next decade will be marked by over 200 lunar missions. According to ESRIC, the Moon has become the new priority for space agencies, out of the annual $26 billion space exploration market, with investments in Moon-related projects expected to more than double between 2013-2022 and 2023-2032, representing nearly half of the total budget allocation.

As a significant contributor to technology development, space exploration is also expected to generate numerous spill-over effects in materials science, manufacturing, robotics, and data analytics notably. Examples of inventions from space agencies, spin-offs to the industry are numerous: portable computers, home insulation, scratch-resistant lenses, freeze-dried food and athletic shoes to name a few. Similarly, commercial solutions with a terrestrial application could enable space and lunar economies, thus allowing innovations “made for” space agencies to produce everyday products.

“50 years ago, portable computers, camera phones and wireless headsets did not exist and yet all these products have been invented by space agencies to support space exploration, eventually becoming the products we know today. Our accelerator precisely aims to enable such innovations to come to life from public-private partnerships. We aspire to build today with ESA the success stories of tomorrow,” added Alexander Godlewski.

The Space Resources Accelerator aims to attract a wide range of stakeholders, starting with institutional partners who are interested alongside ESA to sustain space exploration efforts by collaborating with the private sector to build a human presence on the Moon. It also targets potential strategic partners interested in boosting their innovation roadmap to address the new challenges faced by space agencies with the Moon as a next frontier. Over the last few years, many pioneering projects – from lunar rovers to habitats and propellants – have involved space agencies and commercial players from the automotive, construction and energy sectors notably. This programme aims to strengthen such public-private cooperation. Finally, by de-risking ambitious projects backed by ESA, the accelerator constitutes an attractive platform for investors to finance successful businesses addressing terrestrial and/or space use cases with capabilities to seize the upside potential of an entirely new economy in the making.

“In a context in which fundraising is particularly challenging, we are building a win-win ecosystem whereby scale-ups can secure public funding while sustaining space exploration efforts resulting in innovations. This endeavour would also bring solutions to the Moon and back to Earth, thus attracting private investors. The lunar economy offers an exciting environment to experiment with various technologies, and we are looking forward to working alongside our future partners and support the next Moon trailblazers,” highlighted Alexander Godlewski.