ECSS
The ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardisation) is a partnership established to develop a coherent set of space standard for the entire European Space Community. The organisation brings together space agencies, particularly ESA, and the European industrial sector.
Together, representatives from agencies and industry undertake the tasks to draft, update and maintaining the ECSS standards library that can be make applicable, at the customers request, to the procurement of space systems in Europe.
ECSS has two governing bodies with regular annual meetings, each with a decision structure balancing the power of agencies and industry representatives:
- The TA (Technical Authority) is the most technical decisional body of the ECSS. It sets-up and implements the work-plan validated by the Steering Board, validates all the technical steps of documents production and approval process.
- The SB (Steering Board) is responsible of the overall strategy and policy issues. It supervises ECSS global activities through working plans and delegates the tasks to relevant sub-bodies.
STWG
The STWG (Standardisation Working Group) has been created to organise and coordinate the involvement of industry in the context of standardisation activities, mostly targeting the ECSS, but not exclusively. It is also monitoring space standards at the level of ISO and CEN.
The STWG enables industry to organise its involvement in the ECSS at both inter-institutional and working levels.
- At the inter-institutional level the STWG enables industry designated representatives to elaborate the common sectoral views and positions to support the work of the TA and SB.
- At working group level the STWG populates the ECSS process with relevant experts and organises all review and approval phases for new and updated standardisation documents. Experts involved in the elaboration of standards in ECSS can benefit from financial support from ESA in the form of travel reimbursement costs incurred with the ECSS WG meetings. See the reimbursement scheme below.
Under the active coordination of the Eurospace Secretariat, the STWG focuses on:
- Gathering consensus in the Industry for developing and reviewing standards applicable to Space systems procurement in Europe.
- Approving standards for publication.
- Monitoring space standards at ECSS, CEN, ISO.
- Nominating experts from the Industry to take part in standards development.
Participation in the STWG is not exclusive to Eurospace members. Any company can be involved and be added to the STWG mailing list, to follow the ECSS processes, review standards in progress and nominate experts to take part in drafting Working Groups.
STWG Terms of Reference – available HERE
Secretariat
Valentin Marie, +33 7 86 58 74 34 Valentin.marie@eurospace.org
ECSS travel costs Reimbursement procedure
Since 1995, ESA has been reimbursing, through Eurospace, travel and subsistence costs incurred by the representatives of European industry having participated in ECSS working group meetings (ESTEC Contract No 4000111716).
Since April 2019, reimbursements are organised into 3 periods.
- Period 1: December 1st of year N-1 till March 31st of year N, the claims have to be received before April 30th
- Period 2: April 1st till July 31st of year N, the claims have to be received before August 31st
- Period 3: August 1st till November 31st of year N, claims have to be received before December 2
Late claims will not be processed by Eurospace.
Please read carrefully the ECSS Reimbursement Procedure (revision April 2019) and check the ECSS FAQ
Contact us in order to get the ECSS reimbursement excel form and send it to:
EUROSPACE, Attn. Ms. Nathalie ALECTON, 22 Rue du Quatre Septembre, F-75002 PARIS.
ecss.reimbursement@eurospace.org
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