European governments and companies seek changes to georeturn

BREMEN, Germany — European government and industry officials say the policy of “georeturn,” which guarantees nations receive contracts in proportion to their investments, needs to be adjusted, particularly to make Europe’s launch industry more competitive.

In sessions at the Space Tech Expo Europe conference here Nov. 14, leaders of national space agencies and executives of major space companies said georeturn policies of the European Space Agency should be changed in unspecified ways, but argued against doing away with those policies entirely.

The concern, they said,…