France is proceeding with the International Space Summit in Paris on Sept. 9 and 10 despite the withdrawal of four U.S. space companies and lower-than-expected participation by European leaders. SpaceX and Blue Origin were among the firms that pulled out after White House concerns over what it viewed as a pro-European agenda, scrapping several planned announcements, sources said last week. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will not attend. The summit is intended to bring together decision-makers, companies and scientists from 120 nations, including the U.S. and China, to discuss cooperation, regulation, space traffic, access to orbit and scarce operating frequencies. Organizers expect about 2,000 delegates at Paris’s Grand Palais, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is scheduled to deliver a keynote policy speech. France is promoting greater European autonomy, including support for the European Union’s IRIS² secure satellite constellation, while Germany remains more open to SpaceX and is planning its own secure network. The informal meeting is not expected to produce decisions, but France is seeking broad declarations and commercial announcements. Europe invests about five times less than the United States in space, according to European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher, while the agency is preparing proposals to reduce Europe’s reliance on U.S. rockets for launching human astronauts.