ESA director-general Josef Aschbacher expressed his views on Musk’s outsized role in the space sector in an interview with the Financial Times.
Aschbacher called on European leaders to stop facilitating Musk’s ambitions, such as by welcoming the sudden expansion of his Starlink satellite internet service in the region, making the case that this passivity hinders the regional space sector while putting Musk in a position to do as he wishes.
“Space will be much more restrictive [regarding] frequencies and orbital slots,” he told the Financial Times. “The governments of Europe collectively should have an interest [to] give European providers equal opportunities to play on a fair market.”
Starlink is a satellite constellation operated by SpaceX. It consists of over 1,700 satellites, with tens of thousands of small satellites still to launch. While satellite internet coverage reaches most of Earth, service can only be accessed in countries that have licensed...