Establishment of community wide awareness of the importance of materials and processes sustainability

ESA is facilitating a European-wide platform for obsolescence management of materials and processes. This was motivated by the recognition that a wider platform was needed to coordinate emerging issues for materials and processes among all stakeholder of the European space community, including space industry, national space agencies, and ESA. A major task of the so-called Materials and Processes Technology Board (MPTB) is the establishment of community wide awareness of the legislative processes such as REACH and RoHS. These regulations affect the future availability of space applied materials, processes, and consequently related technologies because they may contain or require processing of hazardous substances. The MPTB establishes a long-term risk assessment, and coordinates preventive and corrective actions among the European space community. Dedicated development activities are already driven forward and coordinated through Clean Space. Efforts need to continue to strengthen the European supply chain not only for regulatory compliance, but to position the European space community at the forefront of sustainable technologies, establishing the relevant heritage and knowledge management for commercial deployment.