Answering an ESA Call:
3 Major Things to Know Before Preparing Your Proposal
Have you ever tried to bid on an ESA CfP (Call for Proposal) or AO (Announcement of Opportunity) and felt lost in the process?
Check out this article to understand the 3 key points you need to know to better respond to a call!
And don’t forget, if you’re struggling with the process, SAT4SPACE can help you! Check out our offers and contact us if you need more info!
1 – ESA STAR: The ESA Portal
ESA STAR is the first thing you absolutely need to understand. ESA STAR is the system used by ESA to announce upcoming calls, gauge the interest of industry and research labs in various activities.
Similar to the European Commission’s Participant Portal, the first thing you need to do is register your entity on the ESA portal. Without this, you won’t be able to access the full content of the calls—only the title and a short description will be visible!
The registration is relatively easy, but you will need to provide a fair amount of administrative data about your company. Make sure you have all the necessary information, especially if you’re part of a large organization—you might need to consult your accounting team to answer some questions.
Also, make sure to correctly define who will have access to the portal, who will receive notifications, and who will have the rights to submit a proposal. If you don’t, you may find yourself unable to submit your proposal before the deadline—which would be a real pity after spending so much time preparing it!
Once completed, bear in mind that it may take a few days for ESA to validate your company. This is crucial if you’re part of a consortium, as the leader will likely share proposal templates with you, but without being registered, you’ll block the submission process!
Note that while you can partially fill out the forms, you will need to complete them fully to secure a contract.
2 – Typical Official Documents in a CfP or AO
Once you’ve found your preferred call and topic within ESA STAR, congrats! You can start preparing your proposal.
But wait! How do you know exactly what to address in the call?
No worries. First, you need to understand the typical ESA documentation for a call. It usually consists of five key documents:
- The Letter of Invitation (eli in the title of the PDF)
- The Tender Conditions (etc in the title of the PDF)
- The Activity Description, often referred to as the Statement of Work (ews in the title of the PDF)
- The Contract Conditions in draft form (ecc in the title of the PDF)
- Additional documents (not mandatory), which often contain extra information, roadmaps, glossaries, and sometimes a template for your proposal.
Before starting, I strongly recommend reading these documents carefully. Most of the mandatory content is clearly outlined there!
3 – The Three Minimum Documents You Need to Prepare to Respond to a Call
- A Cover Letter presenting your offer to ESA
- A Technical Proposal, summarizing the technical aspects of your offer
- An Administrative, Management, and Contractual Proposal, which outlines your organization, how you plan to manage the project, and your contractual terms, including the pricing for the activity!
These documents must follow very formal and clearly defined sections, which are standard in space engineering.
Interested in learning more about the proposal content?
Let us know, if we have enough demands, we will prepare a future article on the subject!
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