Dutch technology to the moon

Space travel is of increasing importance for the Netherlands from an economic, societal, and scientific perspective. Dutch space policy plays a significant role in seizing the opportunities of space travel. The policy focuses on a number of main objectives:

1. Preserving scientific position;
2. Safeguarding national security;
3. Utilising space data for sustainability and addressing societal issues;
4. Promoting business and innovation;
5. Fostering international cooperation.

To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of space policy from 2017 to 2024, we evaluated the policy results and impact at the request of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The evaluation also looks towards the future of Dutch space policy. We concluded that Dutch space policy in the past period has been efficient. At the same time, we noted that the effectiveness of the policy falls short of ambitions. Several important choices are needed for a successful space policy in the future. To achieve this, we made the following recommendations:

• Increase the Dutch financial contribution to the ESA.
• Prioritise the six missions from the Long-term Space Agenda (LTR) in future space policy.
• Focus more on recruiting and developing talent and on public communication.
• Clarify the (international) mandate and future name of the NSO.
• Ensure that future space policy is truly integrated both in content and governance.
• Ensure that the objectives of future space policy are formulated as concretely (SMART) as possible.
• Promote the strong aspects of Dutch space policy (e.g. SBIR, satellite data portal, etc.) and the Dutch space ecosystem (e.g. Earth observation) more (also internationally).
• Act even more as a launching customer for the Dutch space sector as a government and create conditions for Dutch space companies to become leaders internationally.

On 27th January 2026, the government response to the evaluation report was shared. We are pleased to see that the government, among other things, is accommodating our main recommendation to increase the ESA contribution. The contribution will be increased by €109 million for the period 2026-2028.