The initiative follows other European efforts to achieve greater independence in space as Russia and China present potential challenges.

Europe has already done admirable things in space: Mr Schrogl points to Copernicus, an Earth-observation programme, and Galileo, a satellite-navigation system more accurate than America’s GPS. The ...

The European Space Agency announced Thursday it had secured a record budget of 22.1 billion euros to fund its programmes for ...

The plan hinges on SpaceX being able to demonstrate that Starship can refuel in orbit. NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX now worth $4.4 billion to develop a lander capable of transporting humans to ...