PARIS, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The European Space Agency

unveiled measures on Thursday to speed up payments to the space

industry in the face of mounting job cuts, while imposing

greater scrutiny following a raft of cost overruns and delays.

Director General Josef Aschbacher announced the plan after a

council meeting of the 22-nation agency, a week after Airbus

announced 2,500 job cuts mainly in its satellites

business.

"Profitability has been raised as a major issue," Aschbacher

said, citing recent announcements at Airbus Defence and Space

and Franco-Italian rival Thales Alenia Space.

The proposed support will include increasing the level of

downpayments on new contracts and releasing progress payments

more quickly without waiting for all development milestones to

be completed, "which of course takes much longer," he added.

But the proposal also comes with greater oversight.

Aschbacher said a newly formed Independent Project

Management Authority would be tasked with scrutinising new

programmes for cost, schedule and content to ensure they are

"realistically prepared".

"We are working in space technology where we are always

expecting the unexpected... We will have to do deal with this,

but at least from a cost and schedule perspective, we would like

more of a conservative manner to make sure that the planning is

going very well," Aschbacher said.

Airbus has taken a total of 1.5 billion euros of charges on

satellite manufacturing losses in recent quarters. Airbus and

Thales did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Aschbacher told Reuters last week that Europe's space

industry needed the muscle to compete globally, warning Europe

risks falling behind in the new space race.