Who We Are
The AEAAS – Alliance for European Autonomous Access to Space – is a Horizon Europe project bringing together legal, industrial, and institutional expertise from Portugal, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and New Zealand. Over a 12-month period, the consortium is undertaking a comprehensive analysis of global spaceport regulatory frameworks and practices across more than 40 jurisdictions and assessing them against key performance indicators such as safety, sustainability, interoperability, and security.
Building on this evidence base, AEAAS will develop regulatory pathways and deliver a set of common regulatory practices and guidelines for European spaceports. These outputs aim to support safe, interoperable, and efficient launch operations, while enhancing alignment and enabling a more predictable and competitive regulatory environment across Member States. This will enable fast, predictable, proportionate, and harmonized licensing across Member States.
Through this approach, the project seeks to position the European Union as a reliable, attractive, and globally competitive region for the launch economy. The European commercial launch market is predicted to reach $32bn by 2035, from $13bn in 2024. By fostering innovation, strengthening regulatory autonomy, and contributing to the development of a sustainable and resilient European Space sector, AEAAS supports Europe’s strategic ambition to enable approximately 10 countries – who cannot deliver launch from their own territory – to exploit a standardized regulatory approach to credibly include access to launch in their plans.
Project Objectives
Mapping Best Practices
Mapping worldwide spaceport regulatory practices
Regulatory Pathways
Identifying paths for EU spaceports’ regulation
Common Guidelines
Drafting a common regulatory proposal
Stakeholder Engagement
Engaging stakeholders in the regulatory proposal
Work Packages
Project Management and Coordination
Survey – Data Collection and Review of Regulations
Assessment of Best Practices and Identification of Gaps
Regulatory Framework Proposal
Stakeholder Engagement and Knowledge Transfer
Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication
Consortium
14 Partners. 6 Jurisdictions. One Shared Mission.
The AEAAS consortium gathers spaceport operators, launch services providers, consultants, brokers, experts in export control, propulsion fuel manufacturers, law firms, stakeholder clusters, and two national regulatory agencies, with recognized industrial and technical capabilities.
