France, Aug. 14 -- Europe's expanding satellite ambitions are putting pressure on the continent to boost its launch capacity and reduce its reliance on foreign providers.

Josef Aschbacher, director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA), said the region was heading for a crunch as new satellite constellations and major space programmes come online.

The ESA currently forecasts that Europe will face a shortage of launchers around 2030, Aschbacher told the Financial Times in an interview published this week.

"If we add up all the satellites that need to be launched from current and planned constellations and missions... we see that there's a peak of launch requirements around 2029, 2030, 2031," he said.

The warning comes as Eur...