The European Space Industry Directory offers extensive information regarding the products and companies related to space in Europe.
I just found this site, what is it for anyway ?
What is the European Industry Directory ?
The European Industry Directory is a on-line database containing information about:
The EID does not pretend to be exhaustive, altough it keeps growing steadily and already covers the full spectrum of space activities, from ground segment to payload, from scientific laboratories to world-wide corporations.
The database can be accessed by anyone through the web.
Who makes this directory ?
The European Industry Directory is sponsored by the Industry Matters and Technology (IMT) division of the European Space Agency.
Is this service free of charge ?
Yes, it is free of charge. And there are currently (December 2000) no plans to make it otherwise.
Do I need to sign up ?
There is no need for a password to consult the Directory.
However, if you wish your company to appear in the Directory, it must have an ESABD. To know if your company has an ESABD, contact the person usually in relation with ESA at your company or go check your company information on EMITS. If your company neved had any relation with ESA before, please contact su directly.
Please note that only companies with a recognised space activity can appear in the directory. In particular, companies with aeronautic activities only are not eligible.
I never used this directory before, how do I use it ?
The sections below will provide you with a quick tour of the possibilities in using the European Industry Directory.
The European Industry Directory offers information on two categories of items:
space products/technologies/services
companies with space activities
The home page of the European Space Industry Directory offers several was to search for the information within the directory. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are the...
How to find information about space products/technologies/services ?
Simply on click the 'Find a product' at the left of the European Industry Directory homepage
You will then be able to search for products accroding to four type of criteria:
part or all of the name of the product (ie input "modem" to find all product whose name contain modem)
part or all of the name of the company which proposes product (ie input "satellite" to find products from companies whose name contain satellite
the country in which the company which proposes the product is located
the type of product (ie Spacecraft Bus/Power/Power Storage)
The mechanism for finding and we recommend that you familiarise with the full text search
If you indicate several criteria, you will look for products which meet simulteanously all criteria.
For example, if you search for a product which is made in Switzerland and which belongs to the category Launcher/On-board Hardware/Computers, the results will not consist of all products that are made in Switzerland and all the products that are listed Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Computers. The results will consist only of the intersection (if there is one) of these two ensembles.
However, if you specifiy several values for one criteria (ie product category), you will find all the product thats meet any value of these criteria.
For example, if you specify that you look for products in Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Computers and Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Sensors, the result of your search will be:
all the products classified under Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Computers plus
all the product classified under Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Sensors.
If you specify that you look for products in Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Computers and Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Sensors, and made in Switzerland, the result of your search will be:
all the products that are simultenously classified under Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Computers and made in Switzerland plus
all the product that are simultenously classified under Launcher/On-board Management Hardware/Sensors and made in Switzerland.
How to find information about a company ?
Simply on click the 'Find a company' at the left of the European Industry Directory homepage
You will then be able to search for products accroding to four type of criteria:
part or all of the name of the company which proposes product (ie input "satellite" to find products from companies whose name contain satellite
part or all of the name of the product (ie input "modem" to find all product whose name contain modem)
the country in which the company is located
the fields of space activities of the company (ie Spacecraft Bus/Power/Power Storage)
How to find information about both products and companies ?
If you are not sure what you are looking for exactly, you can simply type a word or part of a word in the search box.
Then click GO to launch the search and display the product entries and company entries which contains that word.
The search will be carried through all the text inside the Directory, including of course company names and product descriptions, but also product titles, product features, company shareholders, contact names and emails, and so on.
An example... you want something about thrusters ? Type thruster in the search box and click GO
The search is case insensitive so looking for thruster will also find Thruster and THRUSTER (conversely, a search for THRUSTER would find thruster and Thruster).
It is recommended not to use a plural since a search on thruster will find entries containing either thruster or thrusters, whereas a search on thrusters will not find those entries that contain only thruster. Note that a search on thruster would also find retrothruster, thrusterisation, dethrusterised, etc if such words were mentioned in one of the products or company entries in the Directory.
Generally speaking, it may be useful to input only the significant part of a word to find all its derivates. For example, you could input vibrat to find vibration, vibrating, vibratory, vibrate, etc
There are no wildcards characters (such as *, ?) in the present version of the Directory.
What are the checkboxes in front of the products names for ?
To assist you in reusing information from the EID, you have the possibility of creating PDF reports out of the results from a search. In this way, you can print or save to your disk a batch of results, without having to save each entry individually. To create a PDF report, you need to:
first, check one or more boxes corresponding to the company/product entry you want to include in the report. You may go to other pages of results
second, click the "Print the selected results" button
The resulting PDF file will be displayed in a separate window. You may then print or save, and then close this window. Please note that if you ckecked more than 5 entries, there may be a definite delay (~1 min) before the PDF file is computed and sent to your browser.
What is the "Print the selected products" button for ?
The print button is used in conjunction with the checkboxes (see above) that appear before each item on the list of results.
I have made several searches with different queries but I haven't found what I was looking for. What do you suggest ?
If you made text queries (using the search box and the go button ), please have a look at the characteristics of the full text search to check for things such as plurals and derivate words.
If the information you are looking for is rather generic (eg, information about telecommunication payloads), and you have used text queries (using the search box and the go button on the homepage), you may try to search for products or companies by categories XX faire un lien sur rech par category.
If you made searches using technology or activity category criteria and the information you are looking is quite specific (eg, magnetic bearing), you may try to search for a specific word within all the texts of the Directory. To search for a specific word, go to the homepage and use the search box at the left. Please have a look at the characteristics of the full text search before to avoid any misunderstandings.
If you made searches using criteria such as company name or country, make sure your search is not too narrow. If you gave more than 2 type of criteria (eg activity and country, or company name and product category), the search is unlikely to find any results.
If you are looking for a specific company:
if you have already tried to search for a company name which is an acronym, you may try to search again using the full of the name of the company, or better, the first word of the name
Example: search for Original if you already searched for OSC (Original Space company) with no results
if you have already tried to search for a company name whereas the company sometimes uses an acronym for its name, you may try the acronym instead (no disctinction is made between upper-and lowercase).
Exemple: search for osc if you already searched for Original Space Company with no results
When I go back to a list of results after I looked at one item from the list, this item always displayed, although now I clicked another one. What's the matter ?
This may be due to the way your browser is configured. By default, your browser stores any pages you view for the first on your hard drive, so that it can display them faster the following times (it is much faster to pull information from a hard drive than through the network). This technique is normally very useful but as the directory is a dynamic site (pages are extracted from a database), it may happen that your browser uses a page from your hard drive rather than the page provided by the server, and that you actually intended to see.
To remedy this, go through the following steps:
If you are using Netscape Navigator:
go the 'Edition' menu
select the 'Preferences' option, a window will open that displays the arborescence for the preferences of your browser
click on the little cross (+) right of the 'Advanced' item, three sub-items will appear ('Cache', 'Proxy' and 'Smartupadate')
select the 'Cache' sub-item, the content of the left panel of the window will change and display the cache options
in the 'The document of the cache is compared to that of the network' section of the panel, select 'Each time'
click 'OK' to close the preferences window
Netscape Navigator is now configured. Please make a new search (since using the new settings with the results of a previous search may yield strange behaviour from your browser), and you should now be able to view correctly all results.
If you are using Internet Explorer:
go to the 'Tools' Menu
select the 'Internet Options' item, a window will appear (this window normally displays the 'General' tab by defaut. If not, please select the 'General' tab in this window)
in the 'Temporary Internet Files' section of this window (middle section normally), click the 'Parameters' button, a new window will appear
in the 'Check for a new version of the page' section of this window, select the 'Each visit of the page' option
click 'OK' to close the 'Parameters' window
click 'OK' to close the 'Internet Options' window
Internet Exploreris now configured. Please make a new search (since using the new settings with the results of a previous search may yield strange behaviour from your browser), and you should now be able to view correctly all results.
My company is not represented in the directory...
Why ?
The information within the EID database is provided by the companies themselves, on a voluntary basis. We regularly mail invitations to participate in the Directory to all European and Canadian companies (in very a broad sense) with space activities that we know about. It may be that we overlooked your company, in which case we apologise, or it may be that the person which received the mail was not interested in presenting the company in the catalogue. In any case, you are welcome to present your company and its products/technologies/services in the catalogue. Please note however that your company must have:
actual activities specific or closely related to space (aviation activities are not eligible)
a significant presence in at least one of the ESA member and associate member states (a production or enginnering facility is considered significant while a sales office, however large, is not)
How can my company appear in the directory ?
Having your company appear in the European Industry Directory is straightforward. You only need to
have an ESABD
fill-out a questionnaire
What is an ESABD ?
An ESABD is a number attributed by ESA to companies working, actually or potentially, with the Agency. The ESABD uniqually identifies your company, much like a Social Security number identifies you as an individual. In the case of large companies, different ESABD may be assigned to different company department/division/site to reflect the autonomy of each unit.
ESABD are typically assigned whenever you inscribe your company to EMITS, the electronic invitation for tender of ESA.
I don't know if my company has an ESABD, how can I know ?
The best solution is to check with the person at your company who is usually in contact with ESA. If he/she does not know about the ESABD, your company probably does not have one.
My company does not have an ESABD, how should I do ?
Please register as an EMITS user. You will then be provided with an ESABD number. EMITS (Electronic Mail Invitation to Tender System) is a web-based service of ESA for providing information about the Agency's calls for tenders.
Where is this questionnaire ?
To access this questionnaire, you should go to the homepage of the European Industry Directory and then click the 'Add you company' button on the right of the page
How to fill out the questionnaire ?
Which fields are mandatory ?
The following fields are mandatory:
company name contact name
type of entity contact phone
address contact fax
country contact email
post code contact title
city
web site
phone
fax
Some of the information your ask for is confidential, can I omit it ?
The information asked for in the questionnaire is rather basic but the case may happen when you do not wish, for whatever reason, to provide a piece of information.
First, it should be noted that some information asked for in the questionnaire is reserved for the internal use of ESA and is not displayed on the pages of the European Industry Directory. Please check the list of items for ESA internal use only to see if the items that poses problem is within the list. If that is the case, the information will not be available outside ESA..
If the item is not on the list and if the field related to this piece of information is not mandatory, just leave it blank. We have taken care that the mandatory fields in the questionnaire are very few in numbers (see list of mandatory fields).
If the mandatory field is related to a number, give -1 (such values are dismissed). If the field is a text item, please contact us by email
Are there some limits on the size of the texts I can provide ?
Title items such as the names of companies, shareholders, products, contacts are usually limited to 255 charcters, which is wholly sufficiant for normal use.
Descriptive items such as the description of your company, the features of a product, etc, are unlimited in practice. These items are actually limited to 64 000 characters but it is unlikely you will ever need this much (64 000 characters is roughly equivalent to 20 full A4 pages in 12pt Times new roman).
I input the turnover but the value has been reset to 0. What happened ?
You probably input a space (as in 1 000 000) or a comma (as in 1,000,000). Please use only digits when you input numbers. Example: 1000000. For decimal numbers, please use only a dot. Example:1.5
How can I input our company logo?
You can't do it yourself. Please send us your logo by email to the webmaster. It should be a GIF picture between 40*120 pixel and 60*60 pixel.
General redaction guidelines
Use Euro when indicating any amount of money. This is explicitely asked for within the turnover items of the questionnaire, but also applies when you mention amounts of money in your product or company description.
Use the metric system (meters, kilograms, etc) for measurements. Inches and pounds should only be given between parenthesis, after the suitable measurement is provided in the metric system. Example: width 3 m (9'')
Use your postal address (PO Box) if you have both a postal and a physical address.
If your product name is known by an acronym (eg ACME), please input the the acronym as the product title and the the full name as the product title complement. Otherwise, you may use the title and title complement as you see fit.
It is not necessary to include address and contact name in the text describing your company since the address and contact person you gave earlier in the questionnaire will appear automatically in the directory.
I just added my company/products, why can't I find them when I make a search ?
All additions to the directory are examined and validated by ESA. When the information has been validated, it is released for consultation. This process takes a few days at most.
In case there are some questions about the information you input, or some modifications are required, we will contact you directly (make sure you included your email in the questionnaire).
Pages about my company appear in the directory but some information (ie shareholders) which I filled in the questionnaire is not displayed. Why is that ?
The following information is required in the questionnaire but its consultation is reserved for the internal use of ESA. As such the infomration does not appear on the page which is displayed on the web site:
subsidiary name, participation
shareholder name, participation
VAT registration number
date and country of creation
How can the products/technologies/services of my company appear in the directory ?
Having your product/technologies/services appear in the European Industry Directory is quite simple. You only need to fill out the questionnaire for your company (if it is not done already) and the fill out the questionnaire for products.
How to fill the questionnaire ?
Where is the questionnaire for products ?
To access the questionnaire for products, you must first access the questionnaire for company. Then click on the 'Product' link.
Which items are mandatory in the questionnaire ?
Only the title is mandatory. However, the title itself is of no use. We encourage you to fill out as many items in the questionnaire as possible.
Please keep in mind that persons viewing your product entry can decide themselves about the interest of your product only if you provide them with enough information to take such a decision. If they do not have enough information, it is unlikely that they will bother to ask for more.
Can I give a contact person for a product ?
By default, the contact you gave on the company questionnaire appears as the contact for each of the product you have input.
Can I specifiy for a product a different contact person from the contact I mentionned on the company questionnaire ?
Yes, although this is not yet standard procedure. Please email us mentionning your company, the name of the product and the specifics of the contact you wish to appear on the product entry. Specifics of the contact should include: first name, last name, position within the company, phone, fax and email.
Can I list my product in several categories ?
You can not list a product under several categories. If you wish to appear under two or more categories and if you have a range of similar products, we recommend that you split this range and present an individual product in each of the category you target.
My product does not ift in any of the category. Where should I list it ?
If you are not sure which category suits your product, please use the product search and look for products in categories close or related to your own. If a product similar to yours has already been listed, you should probably use the category in which this product was classified.
If you really think your product does not fit in any of the existing category, please finish filling out the product questionnaire and email us with the name of the product and how you think it should be classified.
How can I write tables within an item (i.e. the features item) ?
Please email us the table as a Word document, mentioning the company, product and the relevant item within the questionnaire (features, application fields, etc) in the body of the email. We will then manage the insertion of the table in the corresponding product entry.
At the moment, there is no simpler way to insert a table (unless you are ready to code the table in html youself)
Are there some limits on the size of the texts I can provide ?
The limits are the same as the text size limits for the company questionnaire.
General redaction guidelines
The redaction guidelines are the same as the redaction guidelines for the company questionnaire
Is there a limit to the number of products I can present ?
There is no such limit. You can present as many space products/technologies/services as you wish. Some companies have over 30 entries. However, please note that all products/technologies/services should be related to space.
What about the illustrations ?
My company provide services, we do not have any products from which to take pictures of. What should I do ?
If your services relies on using software (ie CAD or simulation tools), you may include a screenshot from one of those tools displaying a project on which you have worked.
Are there any preferences concerning the format of the illustration ?
Yes there are. The image should be provided in either in GIF or JPEG format. The size of the image should be
(Those size are only indicative. It is not necessary to respect them exactly)
The information in the questionnaire I filled-out is different from the one that appears on the site. What is happening ?
I checked several times on the product questionnaire and the info I wrote is here, but the product page on the site only displays the contact name. Why ?
If no category was indicated for the product, the page will only display the name of the product and the contact. To set the classification of the product, login, go to the product questionnaire, click on the 'Modify the category' button and choose one category
I made some changes on a questionnaire (company or product) but they do not appear on the site. Why ?
There is a little delay (a few minutes at most) in the database caching mechanism before the changes appear on hte consultation page. Note that this delay exist only for you: if someone else consult the page of your company or products right after you made a modification with the questionnaire, the modification will appear to him.
I input some values for turnover repartition but they are always set to 0 when I come back later. Why ?
Please check that you are not trying to input anything else than numbers (with or with out a decimal part) for annual turnover and integers for turnover repartition between customers. In particular, input such as >50, ~40 or 30% or 7.5 are not valid values for turnover repartition. 50, 40, 30 or 8 are valid values
The information about my company is incorrect or out of date and I want to change it, how should I do ?
To change information about you company and/or products and services, please use the on-line questionnaire. To access the questionnaire, you should go to the homepage of the European Industry Directory and then click the 'Update your data' button on the right part of the page.
You will be asked for your username and password before you can access the questionnaire.
The questionnaire will display the data currently in use for your company in the European Industry Directory. Simply make the changes and click the 'Validate' button at the bottom of the page.
If you wish to make changes in the information about your products/services, click the 'Products' links
Please note that the changes may take up to a few minutes to appear. This time is required by the server to cycle though the complete database and notice all the changes.
Please note that you can't modify yourself neither specific contacts for products nor your company logo. For such modifications, please send us an email to the webmaster
Company X or product/technology/service Y is not in the directory but I think it should really be. What are you going to do about it ?
The information within the EID database is provided by the companies themselves, on a voluntary basis. Although we encourage companies to participate, we can only distribute whatever information we have been provided with. If you think a company or product does not appear in the Directory whereas it is of significant interest, we recommend that you email the relevant contact in the company about the Directory, and send us a copy of this email. We will then try to insure that the information is included in the Directory.
This FAQ talks a lot about companies but what about universities, agencies and others ?
The term "company" is used very loosely here. "company" within this FAQ actually means:
registered company
private or public laboratory or university
agency
institution
any other entity with special status from within the 15 different members and associate member of ESA .
We apologise in advance for any offense commited in using "company" with so broad a meaning, and will gladly listen to suggestions for alternative solutions.
In the same way, "product" means a technology-based resource available for use. "products" can be either products, technologies or services.
I read this FAQ but found no response to my question, how will I get one ?
Please make sure you have gone through all the items in the detailed list of questions. If you did not find anything suitable, you can contact the helpdesk bv email
How many products and companies are presented in this directory ?
You can check the current number of entries in the directory using the statistics page.
This function has been developped in respect with EMITS and ESA classifications of space activities
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