The European Space Agency is expanding the use of artificial intelligence in its work. The agency has agreed on a strategic partnership with the French company Mistral, one of Europe’s leading developers of language models. Neural networks will assist engineers, analyze satellite images, and accelerate mission preparation. At the same time, the computing infrastructure is expected to remain within Europe.
Signing in Paris
The letter of intent was signed in Paris on September 16 by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch. The agency announced the agreement on September 23 in an official ESA release.
Such a document is not yet a contract. It establishes a framework within which the parties will look for joint projects. The release does not specify amounts or timelines. However, the steady move toward broader use of artificial intelligence in the space industry is becoming increasingly clear. The company is expected to provide artificial intelligence models, cloud infrastructure, and technical expertise, while ESA will contribute its own engineering, scientific, and operational tasks.
Why Space Needs Neural Networks
According to Josef Aschbacher, artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the core technologies of the space industry, and the agency is already testing it in operational and research projects. The document identifies several areas of application. These include processing Earth observation images, engineering analysis, mission design, and specialist training.
Routine operations will be handed over to algorithms, which will also make it easier to search for the necessary knowledge. The release emphasizes that final technical decisions will continue to be made by people.
The agency already has experience with onboard neural networks. In September 2020, the Φsat-1 satellite was launched into orbit, where software onboard directly filtered out images obscured by clouds. This type of selection reduces the amount of data that must be transmitted to Earth, since clouds cover about two-thirds of the planet’s surface at any given time.
Data Will Remain in Europe
The parties will separately examine how to deploy language models on European infrastructure. Among the requirements listed in the release are security, resilience, traceability, auditability, and protection of sensitive information. Arthur Mensch promised to transform the agency’s observation archives into services for the space industry while maintaining the highest standards of control and sovereignty.
The issue of sovereignty also has a legal dimension. The U.S. CLOUD Act of 2018 allows U.S. authorities to demand information from American providers even when their servers are located outside the country. For ESA mission documentation, such dependence creates a risk, so the agency needs a provider operating under European jurisdiction.
Mistral was founded in Paris in 2023. Within just a few years, it has become one of the most prominent competitors to American developers in this field.
Cooperation Is Already Underway
The new agreement builds on work that the agency and the company are already carrying out together. One of these projects, the Orbit assistant, helps employees with engineering tasks and works with the agency’s restricted data without transmitting it outside.
The second tool, the Earth Virtual Expert EVE, was created at the agency’s Φ-lab together with European partners. It specializes in Earth observation and Earth sciences. The parties still need to formalize new areas of work, their timelines, and budgets in separate agreements.
