KIRUNA, Sweden – Deep inside the Arctic Circle, the Swedish government is boldly trying to do what Britain failed to do – successfully launch satellites into space.
Europe’s top political official formally opened a new spaceport On Friday at the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna in Sweden’s far north, a promise was made to use the facility as a platform to carry satellites into orbit, potentially for communications services and climate change forecasting in the sky. Provides everything from monitoring.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the ceremony: “As the first orbital launch site on our mainland, Esrange Spaceport provides an independent European gateway to space.” “The future of the European Union as a space power will also be written in Sweden.”
Its college of commissioners gathered at Esrange, a facility established at the height of the Cold War that has taken on a new geopolitical significance given its ongoing rivalry with China and Russia.
Until now, the only practical point of access to Europe’s orbit has been from a spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana, which is run by the European Space Agency, a Paris-based organization that works with the European Union on its own space programmes. Works.
It is from French territory that Europe has launched this Galileo And Copernicus Satellite constellation in orbit.
The Esrange Space Center opened in the Arctic Circle during the 1960s as a research station and data relay point, and would soon offer a base for launching satellites, though probably only those weighing less than 1,000 kg.
“This spaceport wants to be a microlauncher site in the future,” Joseph Eschbacher, head of the European Space Agency, told POLITICO.
Currently, only a handful of countries have the capability to launch satellites, including China and the United States as well as France and Kazakhstan, which is home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Sweden isn’t the only European country to dream of its own reach to the stars.
attempt to launch the first rocket From a spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England, it failed that month. Virgin Orbit managed to successfully launch satellites on a rocket attached to a supped-up 747 but it mission failure encountered Later on in the journey.
The spaceport at Cornwall Airport is one of a handful of projects being developed to provide access to orbit from continental Europe, along with a platform off the coast of Germany in the North Sea. One on the Azores in Portugal.
“Europe is working on half a dozen spaceports, which is interesting from a competitive point of view and Europe needs it,” said ESA’s Eschbacher.
Swedish Space Corporation (SCC) They say A first satellite launch from Kiruna is “expected by the end of the year 2023/24”, but in order to turn Esrange into a working launch mission site, any rocket must first prove itself to its neighboring countries (Norwegian border). and needs to be fired from is only 200 kilometers away) that it is safe and works, Eschbacher said.
“SSC is in advanced discussions with several potential rocket partners for future orbital launches from Spaceport Esrange,” the national space agency said.
Meanwhile, researchers at private space start-ups such as Munich-based Isar Aerospace are already hard at work Esrange is testing its technology at the facility, while ESA seeks do the so-called “hop test” On-site reusable rocket take-off and landing technology that could help Europe compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the future.
The Kiruna site is considered strategically important to the European Union, not only because the satellites perform vital functions such as monitoring oceans and providing broadband, but also because of geopolitical tensions with Russia.
The commission plans to publish its own plan on how satellites could help protect themselves in March which could tie into Kiruna as an alternative to orbital defence. “The aim is to improve the resilience of the European space infrastructure and strengthen our shared European capabilities,” said von der Leyen.