Sweden on Friday inaugurated and officially opened Mainland Europe’s first space facility for satellite launches.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf cut the ribbon in the city of Kiruna, around 25 miles from the new Spaceport Esrange.
The event was timed to coincide with Sweden taking over as the head of the Council of the European Union.
The facility in Northern Sweden gives the EU the ability to launch satellites, something only around 10 countries previously had the ability to do.
“This spaceport offers an independent European gateway to space. It is exactly the infrastructure we need, not only to continue to innovate but also to further explore the final frontier,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during the inauguration.
Spaceport Esrange is operated by the government-owned Swedish Space Corporation, which already operates 10 ground stations strategically located around the world for optimum coverage, plus eight supplementary partner stations.
The corporation expects around 10,000 new satellites will be launched globally over the next few years, with the total number eclipsing 100,000 by 2040. There are around 5,000 operational satellites in orbit today.
The new facility gives Sweden and the rest of the EU better access to that growing world. It will also host testing of Europe’s initiative for reusable rocketry, the European Space Agency’s Themis program led by ArianeGroup, as well as suborbital test launches of several next generation rockets.
“This new launch complex will help create a foundation for a resilient Europe in Space. New satellite constellations in orbit, responsive launch capabilities and development of reusable rocketry will enable a secure, competitive and sustainable Europe. This will make Europe stronger,” SSC CEO Stefan Gardefjord said in a statement.
“This is a giant leap for SSC, for Sweden, for Europe and the rest of the world. Satellites are decisive for many functions of the daily lives of today’s modern world, and the need for them will only increase in the years to come with Space playing an even more important role.”
The first satellite launch is expected to launch by the end of the year.
“This leading-edge spaceport gives Europe the capabilities to address this growing demand. The benefits of small satellites, that can be launched from here, are immense. We have just heard that it is important to launch these satellites over and over, to have the reusability, to test them,” von der Leyen said Friday.
Arctic Sweden in race for Europe’s satellite launches
Esrange Space Centre, Sweden (AFP) Jan 13, 2023 – As the mercury drops to minus 20 Celsius, a research rocket lifts off from one of the world’s northernmost space centres, its burner aglow in the twilight of Sweden’s snowy Arctic forests.
Hopes are high that a rocket like this could carry a satellite next year, in what could be the first satellite launch from a spaceport in continental Europe.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday inaugurated “Spaceport Esrange”, an extension to the Esrange Space Centre.
“Europe has its foothold in space and will keep it,” von der Leyen said.
Here, about an hour from the mining town of Kiruna, there’s not a person in sight, only the occasional reindeer herd in the summer.
The vast deserted forests are the reason the Swedish space centre is located here, at the foot of “Radar Hill”, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
“In this area we have 5,200 square kilometres (2,007 square miles) where no one lives, so we can easily launch a rocket that flies into this area and falls down without anyone getting harmed,” Mattias Abrahamsson, head of business development at the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), tells AFP.
Founded by the European Space Agency in 1966 to study the atmosphere and Northern Lights phenomenon, the Esrange space centre has invested heavily in its facilities to be able to send satellites into space.
At a huge new hangar big enough to house two 30-metre rockets currently under assembly elsewhere, Philip Pahlsson, head of the “New Esrange” project, pulls up a heavy blue door.
Under the rosy twilight of this early afternoon, the new launch pads can be seen in the distance.
“Satellite launches will take place from here,” Pahlsson says.
“This has been a major development, the biggest step we have taken since the inception of Esrange.”
More than 600 suborbital rockets have already been launched from this remote corner of Sweden’s far north, including the SubOrbital Express 3 whose late November launch AFP witnessed as the temperature stood at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.)
While these rockets are capable of reaching space at altitudes of 260 kilometres, they’re not able to orbit Earth.
– Booming business –
But with Europe gearing up to send its first satellite into space soon, Esrange is looking forward to joining a select club of space centres that include Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Europe’s space hub in South America, Kourou in French Guiana.
Various projects in Europe — in Portugal’s Azores, Norway’s Andoya island, Spain’s Andalusia and the UK’s Shetland Islands among others — are all vying to launch the first satellite from the European continent.
An attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from UK soil — from a Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 that took off from a spaceport in Cornwall — ended in failure earlier this week.
“We think we are clearly the most advanced,” says the SSC, which is aiming to launch in early 2024.
The satellite industry is booming, and the Swedish state-owned company is in discussions with several rocket makers and clients who want to put their satellites in orbit.
With a reusable rocket project called Themis, Esrange will also host ESA’s trials of rockets able to land back on Earth, like those of SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk.
While the Plesetsk base in northwestern Russia carried out several satellite launches in the post-Cold War period, no other country in Europe has done so.
– Small satellites driving demand –
So why is the continent — so far from the Equator, which is more suited for satellite launches — suddenly seeing such a space industry boom?
“Satellites are becoming smaller and cheaper, and instead of launching one big satellite you spread it out over multiple small satellites and that drives the demand,” explains Pahlsson.
The number of satellites in operation in 2040 is expected to reach 100,000, the SSC said, compared to 5,000 now.
Orbiting the North and South Poles is enough for many satellites, making sites like Esrange more attractive.
In addition, having a launch site close to European clients spares them and their satellites long boat journeys to Kourou.
In Sweden, like in the rest of Europe, the rockets being developed are “micro-rockets”.
These are around 30 metres long, capable of carrying a payload of several hundred kilos. In the future, SSC is aiming for payloads of more than a tonne.
But working in the harsh Arctic climate “comes with challenges”, SSC says.
With temperatures regularly dropping to minus 20 or 30 degrees Celsius, special attention needs to be paid to the metals used, which become more fragile in the cold.
The war in Ukraine — where the engines for the European Vega rocket are manufactured — and the abrupt end to the West’s space cooperation with Russia have meanwhile increased interest in having spaceports on the continent.
“Europe needs independent access to space. The horrible situation in Ukraine has changed the space business,” notes Pahlsson.
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Historic UK rocket mission ends in failure
London (AFP) Jan 10, 2023
An attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from UK soil ended in failure on Tuesday, with scientists reporting an “anomaly” as it neared its goal.
A Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 carrying the 70-foot (21-metre) rocket took off from a spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England, at 2202 GMT.
The rocket then detached from the aircraft and ignited as planned at a height of 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland at around 2315 GMT.
But in a series of tweets as the rocket was du … read more
