Europe has approved its biggest-ever space budget, allocating €22.1bn (about $23.9bn) to the European Space Agency and launching its first explicitly military-grade programme. The new European Resilience from Space project will build a military-grade surveillance network in space, pooling national satellites to provide secure communications, navigation and earth-observation services. Funding was driven by growing concerns over China's and Russia's expanding space activities and lessons from the war in Ukraine. The decision coincides with the world’s largest planetary-defence exercise, focused partly on the fast-moving object 3I/ATLAS. Member states also backed new rockets, commercial programmes, and missions to Mars and Enceladus.