ESA Benefit Case Studies – 100+ success stories of space for Europe’s industry, economy and society • Aug 2025

With funding equivalent to €15 per European citizen annually (compared to nearly €220 per citizen in the United States), ESA plays a key role in supporting European space capabilities.

As shown in ESACM22 Economic Impact Report, the €16.9 billion of subscriptions at ESA Ministerial Council in 2022 are leading to industrial contracts and revenues to the European space industry, based on which €22 billion of GDP (in value added terms) and €6 billion of tax revenues are projected to be generated. These investments also support over 260,000 job-years (equivalent to nearly 33,000 jobs per year) primarily in scientific research and development, and manufacturing industries which outline significantly higher productivity than the average of the European economy.

Beyond the effects of industrial contracts, the space assets developed through ESA programmes deliver remarkable value to Europe’s industry, economy and society. ESA programmes drive growth, support high value-added jobs, foster innovation and critical skills, and secure Europe’s strategic autonomy while actively working to safeguard its global competitiveness in an ever more complex economic and geopolitical context.

ESA's Space Economy Portal library gathers 100+ national success stories, highlighting achievements and benefits from ESA activities across all ESA Member States, notably from:

1.      Technology Development programmes such as Discovery, TDE, GSTP;

2.      FutureEO, ESA’s Technology Development programme for Earth Observation;

3.      CTP, ESA’s Technology Development programmes for Space Science;

4.      ESA ARTES programme, for Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems;

5.      ESA Business Applications and Space Solutions programme, BASS;

6.      Europe’s flagship Earth Observation programme, Copernicus;

7.      ESA’s Technology Transfer activities.

The documents are accessible through the Space Economy Portal library, please log in or register (free and open to all) to access the full list of references. Benefit Case Studies can be filtered by country, by year of publication, and by type of space activity.