When the European Space Agency's council of ministers meets this fall to hash out a new multi-year budget, one of the key challenges it will face is how best to maintain Europe's independent access to space. With potentially billions of euros in development funding at stake over the coming decade, ESA ministers must weigh the merits of continuing work on an upgrade of Europe's current Ari-ane 5 launch vehicle against a French proposal to begin work on a successor to the heavy-lift rocket.
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