In mid-September, at the International Space Summit, French President Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frederic Macron announced support for Dassault Aviation's Vortex-S reusable space plane project. It plans to send the space plane on its first flight in 2028.
European analysts see the Vortex-S as an attempt by the European Union to recover the experience lost after the closure of the Hermes program in the field of reusable orbital planes and to reduce dependence on the American space systems.