When Nasa’s Artemis II lifted off on 1 April, students across Europe organised��launch parties to watch the four astronauts begin their journey around the Moon for the first time in more than half a century.

The crewed flyby depended heavily on European engineering. The Orion spacecraft’s service module, responsible for propulsion, was built by Airbus in Bremen on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). Its solar panels were manufactured in the Netherlands.

But while European space academics anticipated a spike in student interest following the high-profile mission, they said any increase would likely be fleeting. Programme directors from the Netherlands to Milan have observed a decade of steady growth in applications to space-related fields but they attributed it to the booming commercial space sector��– the so-called Elon Musk effect��– rather than flagship exploration missions.

“The flames are already there,” said Kevin Cowan, senior lecturer in astrodynamics and space missions and a programme director of the MSc space flight programme at��Delft University of Technology��(TU Delft).��“[Artemis] could add fuel to those flames.”

ɫ��ֱ��

TU Delft, which offers a BSc in aerospace engineering and an MSc track in space flight, received 4,300 applications this year for 440 undergraduate places, up from about��2,900��only two years ago.

But even that steady growth is running up against structural limits. Joris Melkert, director of education at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, estimated that Europe’s space sector is growing at between��6 and��9 per cent annually, creating demand for skilled graduates that universities can’t meet. “If you asked me, ‘can we double the amount of space graduates?’, I would say I have no idea how to do that,” he said. “We don’t have the staff, the money, the facilities.”

ɫ��ֱ��

The Artemis programme has also revived a broader question within some communities in European space education: whether Europe will ever develop its own independent human spaceflight capability?

Since the creation of the ESA in 1975, Europe has mostly focused on areas where it could compete globally without the expense of a full crewed spaceflight. It has become a leading supplier of critical spacecraft components by building expertise in rockets, satellites and scientific instruments.

In April, the head of the ESA confirmed that the agency is working towards European astronauts walking on the Moon.

In a laboratory in Toulouse, researchers are already working on preparations for Artemis IV, which aims to support the first crewed lunar landing since 1972.

David Mimoun, professor of space systems at ISAE-SUPAERO, a prestigious��grande école that has a long track record of producing astronauts,��is leading the development of a seismometer that astronauts will deploy on the Moon.��He said there��was growing excitement at the institution and a few of his students were working alongside him.

He strongly believes��that Europe should move beyond a supporting role. “As long as Europe doesn’t have common political will to make bold decisions about what to do – for example, going to Mars or the Moon – it’s very difficult,” he said. “We have plans to go to the Moon, but there is no willingness to put the money into it because there are other priorities.”

ɫ��ֱ��

Chiara Manfletti, the chair of space propulsion and mobility at the��Technical University of Munich, who also worked at the ESA, said Europe’s relationship with exploration was fundamentally different from that of the US.

“Europe and exploration is not an easy relationship,” she said, adding that unlike in the US human missions to the Moon or Mars are not treated as political goals in themselves. “Exploration for us is always a bit more difficult to justify and get funding for.”

ɫ��ֱ��

Human spaceflight in Europe has historically depended on cooperation with the US and previously Russia. Even participation in the International Space Station has largely placed Europe in a supporting rather than leadership role, Manfletti explained.��

But despite these challenges, space as a field had��grown significantly in the past decade and��the university was expecting more interest because of the Artemis missions,��she said, adding that her department was increasing the number of professors from 30 to 50. The German university is among the largest contributors to the ESA.��

Manfletti stressed that the sector��was very industry-led across Europe and that universities were underutilised. “There’s still a lot more that universities can contribute to the sector as a whole. And I think that the sector as a whole would be wise in exploring how universities can further contribute to growing it.”

Pierluigi Di Lizia, an associate professor and��coordinator of spatial engineering at the department of aerospace science and technology at��Politecnico di Milano, Italy’s largest technical university, said he had also seen sustained growth in student interest over the past two decades.

“We have waves of interest, which can sometimes be influenced by big space missions. For example, following the Rosetta mission, we saw an increase in student interest,” he explained, referring to a 12-year ESA project that ended in 2016.��

“When I used to study space engineering in 2003, we had about 50 students. But now we have 230 students.” The university is now preparing to introduce a cap of around 200 to preserve teaching quality, he added.��

ɫ��ֱ��

Di Lizia attributes the increase in students to a renewed interest in space exploration and new opportunities in the private sector. But he does not expect Artemis to trigger a further surge, despite Europe’s involvement in the mission. Instead, he points to the broader expansion of the global space economy and describes a field in which “most of the momentum is actually coming from the US”.

seher.asaf@timeshighereducation.com��