European satellite navigation opens new chapter at ESA’s Ministerial Council

Written by Copernical Team Thursday, 27 November 2025 13:16

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The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Directorate of Navigation was pledged close to €1 billion by the Agency’s Member States during this week’s ESA Council at Ministerial Level (CM25) on 26 and 27 November in Bremen, Germany.

With the continuation and expansion of the NAVISP and FutureNAV programmes and three brand new missions, ESA’s Navigation Directorate experienced a significant boost to its optional programmes, with activities that are designed to shape the future of European navigation.

Celeste prepares for multi-layer satnav

Member State flags at ESA’s Ministerial Council in Bremen.

Celeste will prepare for the future European low Earth orbit constellation for positioning, navigation and timing (LEO-PNT), building on the Celeste first demonstrator phase that was approved at the Ministerial Council in 2022. Ultimately, the objective is to add a new LEO layer to the European Union satnav systems, with Galileo at its core. In parallel, Celeste will open new commercial opportunities worldwide, boosting innovation and European leadership for future market opportunities.

Celeste was funded as one of the three core pillars of the new European Resilience from Space (ERS) programme, which is a joint response to critical space needs in security and resilience to serve the urgent needs of our Member States and prepare for future EU strategic space capabilities.

What comes next?

The first two Celeste demonstrator satellites, scheduled to launch early next year, will secure and test the assigned frequencies during a six-month experimentation phase. Following a formal review of the results, ESA foresees to engage user communities and stakeholders in third-party experimentations to test the functionalities and demonstrate services capabilities in representative environments.

Now that the funding for the preparatory phase has been secured, a dedicated Industry Day will be organised early next year to showcase the European PNT ecosystem, outline the new opportunities and present the ESA-EU coordinated roadmap. This will be followed by an invitation to tender for this phase’s industrial activities, focusing on the development of enabling technologies, industrialisation efforts, and the deployment of a set of in-orbit validation satellites.