EU space production hits €5,600 million in 2022

In 2022, the production of spacecraft and their launch vehicles in the EU totalled €5,600 million. This represented a 24% increase from €4 500 million in 2010.

The EU production peaked in 2016, with €6 240 million, and remained high until 2019 (€6,000 million each year between 2017 and 2019), driven by sustained European public investment in space (both from the EU and the European Space Agency). However, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to a significant decline in production, which fell to €4,000 million in 2021, the lowest level since 2010. Therefore, the 2022 figure signals a recovery in this sector.

Source datasets: ds-056120 and data on the European space economy (based on FIGARO balanced view of international trade)

EU exports of spacecraft and their launch vehicles amounted to €512 million in 2022, which represents the lowest point since the start of the series. In contrast, the highest export levels were recorded in 2012 and 2019, at €1 744 million and €1,738 million respectively.

EU imports peaked between 2015 and 2018, with values ranging from €1,865 million to €1,468 million. These high figures were predominantly driven by imports from outside the EU to France. Conversely, the lowest value was recorded in 2019, at €820 million.

While production was relatively high in 2022, imports and exports continued their decreasing trends that started in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

This information comes from new data on the EU space economy released by Eurostat, in cooperation with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DEFIS), and the European Space Agency (ESA), as part of experimental statistics.

For more information

• Experimental statistics on the European space economy thematic account
• Thematic section on European system of accounts supply, use and input-output tables

Methodological notes

• Production, as defined in PRODCOM, refers to ‘any production which, either in the kind-of-activity unit itself, or in another kind-of-activity unit belonging to the same enterprise are intended for sale, or are processed into another product, or are fitted into another product and or are put into stock’.
• Import and export figures are based on the balanced view of international trade of Full international and global accounts for research in input-output analysis (FIGARO). Differences may exist with national import and/or export data given that the FIGARO balanced view of trade aims to solve asymmetries between bilateral trade flows.

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