§ Mr. Anthony CoombsTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the outcome of the ministerial council of the European Space Agency held in Granada on 9 and 10 November.
§ Mr. LeighI am pleased to report that Ministers at the European Space Agency meeting at Granada adopted a new, well-balanced, long-term plan which sets the course of European space activities until the end of this century.
823WThe main achievement for the United Kingdom was an agreement to proceed with the full development of a major new Earth observation mission, known as Envisat-1. This mission will be flown on the British-led polar platform in 1998 and will carry the British-developed advanced synthetic aperture radar and a variety of environmental research instruments. This mission will provide an important contribution to our understanding of global environmental and climate issues and will lead to opportunities for commercial exploitation of the data in the future. Preparations will also be made for an operational meteorological mission, using the polar platform, to be carried out in collaboration with Eumetsat.
The conference also considered ESA's manned space programmes. The Hermes project will not proceed as planned but instead will be replaced by a three-year programme to study alternative options in collaboration with the USA and Russia. Other programmes which were approved were the Columbus manned attached laboratory and the data relay satellite system.
Amongst proposed future programmes is a study of options for future re-usable launchers such as the horizontal take-off and landing launches.
On a proposal from the United Kingdom, Ministers welcomed the work carried out to date by the Committee on Earth Observations Satellites (CEOS), aimed at co-ordinating the Earth Observation activities of the world's space agencies and recognised that CEOS and other international bodies could in time contribute to the emergence of a world space agency.
The result of this conference is a space programme with a much better balance between the applications of space and infrastructure programmes and with a greater emphasis on international collaboration. The United Kingdom welcomes ESA's drive to achieve effective collaboration both within Europe and with its international partners, including the USA and Russia.