Hugo van de Haar

Who buys space in Europe · Poster

The atlas on one sheet

The online atlas on a sheet of 420 by 594 millimetres: where the public buyers sit, what they bought, who bought most and which contracts went abroad.

Print or save

Sheet
A2, 420 × 594 mm, portrait
Notices
358, from 103 public buyers
Published
January 2024 to 21 October 2026
Data
TED, read through its search API
Paper size

The print command sends the poster alone, without the page around it, on a sheet with no margins. Choose Save as PDF as the printer for a file to send or take to a print shop.

A3 and A4 have the same proportions as A2, so the whole sheet scales down unchanged. On A3 the smallest text is about 8 point and reads well at arm's length. On A4 it drops below 6 point, which is too small for a wall but works as a handout.

Without JavaScript the size buttons are off. Your browser's own print command still prints the sheet at A2; for A3 or A4, choose that paper in the print dialog and let it fit the page.

Open the interactive atlas

The Demand Side Procurement atlas · Hugo van de Haar

Who buys space in Europe

Public buyers in Europe and the companies that won their space contracts, from 358 award notices published on TED between January 2024 and 21 October 2026.

Map of Europe. Each award notice is a dot in its buyer's country; lines join a buyer's country to the country of a winning supplier elsewhere.GERMANY 146ROMANIA 27POLAND 11DENMARK 51SPAIN 15FRANCE 17BELGIUM 24CZECH REPUBLIC 18

In numbers

award notices
358
public buyers
103
winning suppliers
385
notices won at least partly by a supplier in another country (46%)
163

Reading the map

One dot per award notice, placed in the buyer's country

Won by a supplier in another country; thicker lines carry more notices

Supplier country without notices from its own buyers

12 links to suppliers in Australia, Canada and the United States lie outside the map.

What they bought

  1. Earth observation data and services 107

  2. Satellite communications 50

  3. Navigation and timing 33

  4. Ground segment and operations 51

  5. Spacecraft, instruments and launch 51

  6. Studies, software and programme support 66

Circles grow with the number of notices from buyers in each country, on the same scale in all six maps.

The ten largest buyers

  1. German Aerospace Center (DLR) Germany 55
  2. European Environment Agency (EEA) Denmark 44
  3. European Commission, DG Defence Industry and Space (DEFIS) Belgium 22
  4. EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) Czech Republic 17
  5. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Germany 17
  6. German Space Agency at DLR Germany 15
  7. Ministerul Apararii - Unitatea militara 02415 Bucuresti Romania 10
  8. Universität Stuttgart Germany 10
  9. Agentia de Plati Si Interventie Pentru Agricultura Romania 8
  10. Mercator Ocean France 7

Award notices per buyer, as named on TED.

Counted per award notice, not by value. Left out: most purchases by ESA and other intergovernmental organisations, which buy through their own systems, purchases under the EU thresholds, and UK contracts. Some buyers issue a separate notice for every order under one framework agreement.

Data from TED, the procurement journal of the European Union. Notices selected and coded for The Demand Side by Hugo van de Haar, with the method, an interactive map and a link to every notice at hugovandehaar.com/atlas.html