On 27 January, the first industry day about the ESOC Engineering and Operations Procurement Framework 2027-2029 was held at ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.  

Well over one hundred representatives from European industry attended.  

ESA presented the new contractual framework replacing the currently running “Frame Contract for the procurement of industrial support at ESOC – GOF9”, which will start from 2027.

The new setup will be composed of three elements:

• A new frame contract: “Competitive Frame Contract for ground segment engineering, mission operations, and engineering services to space traffic – GOF-X”
• One stand-alone contract for “Flight Operations Engineering Services”.
• One stand-alone contract for “Flight Dynamics and Precise Navigation Support Services”.

The activities that will be executed under this framework include developing state-of-the-art ground segment software and hardware systems and cutting-edge technology, ensuring continued European leadership in this domain and enabling to operate the missions of the future.  

Thanks to ESA's industry-friendly IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regime, which comprises many developments under ESA community license, industry can re-use these developments for free for their own commercial products. This will increase competitiveness on the global market.  

State-of-the-art ground segment will require more and more spin-ins of specialised technology domains such as artificial intelligence, public cloud systems, and cybersecurity thus enabling also specialised companies that have so far not worked in the space business to work with ESA by teaming up with one of the experienced existing partners in a strong consortium. This will enrich the competencies existing in the ground segment industrial landscape and ensure the best possible results.

Similarly, the user base has developed dramatically. While past engineering and operations services targeted mainly missions operated by ESOC, now the user base is growing beyond this, including all ESA programmes but also third-party projects.  

While GOF-X will be a true competitive frame contract, meaning selected frame contractors will compete for procurements within the frame contract, the standalone contacts will award “work lots” to companies without further competition once the contact has started.