By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, Bremen
**Europe has taken the first step towards building its own manned spaceship.**The European Space Agency has asked industry to work out the requirements of the craft and its likely cost.
Known as the Advanced Re-Entry Vehicle, it would be developed in phases - first as an unmanned vessel to carry cargo, and then as an astronaut crew ship.
At the moment, Europe has no independent capability to transport humans into space and must hitch rides on American or Russian systems.
Tuesday’s announcement is just the start of a very long process, and there is no guarantee either ARV variant will be built.
Esa member states will want to see industry’s report before approving the spaceship’s full development.
Even then, it is possible only the robotic version will make it off the drawing board. Assuming progress is smooth, a first flight of the unmanned vessel could come as soon as 2016; the astronaut version in perhaps 2025.
The ARV “phase A” study was launched here in Bremen, a major centre for Astrium, Europe’s largest space company.
A 21m-euro contract agreeing the scope of the research was signed by Esa’s director of human spaceflight, Simonetta Di Pippo, and Dr Michael Menking, Astrium’s head of orbital systems and space exploration.
The ARV would essentially be an upgraded version of Europe’s highly successful space freighter, known by another acronym - ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle).
It flew a maiden voyage to the International Space Station (ISS) last year.
The robotic truck has sophisticated automatic rendezvous and docking technology - it can find its own way to the ISS and attach itself without any human intervention.
What it cannot do, however, is return to Earth at high speed through the atmosphere. At present, it simply burns to destruction.
An ARV would have that survivability. This would be a significant asset for the space station which, when the US space shuttle retires next year, will have no means of getting heavy loads back to Earth.
Esa believes the upgrade to its ATV could cost something of the order of 1.5bn euros. Putting the necessary systems inside it to carry astronauts would cost many hundreds of millions of euros more.
Attention would also need to be paid to the safety systems on its launch rocket, an Ariane 5; and to establishing the ground infrastructure to support the vehicle in flight and retrieve it from a splashdown in the Atlantic, perhaps near the Azores.
The next major Esa ministerial council will take place in 2011. Full development of the ARV will be one of the key items on the agenda.
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