Astrium and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) have signed a commercial agreement to provide launch services to the European institutional small satellite market.

Astrium will partner with SpaceX to market Falcon 1 launch capabilities to various space agencies and other institutional customers in Europe for launches to take place through 2015.

The firms will serve customers with very small payloads to launch independently to low-Earth orbit, providing them greater control over launch and launch schedules.

SpaceX CEO and CTO Elon Musk said that, together, the companies will meet the growing demand for reliable, low-cost launch services for very small Earth observation and scientific payloads for European institutional customers.