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Saudi Arabia’s ambitious space program provides a foretaste of exciting collaborations to come
JEDDAH: More than half a century ago, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to set foot on the moon’s surface. Since this historic milestone, governments, scientists and now entrepreneurs have set their sights on more distant and ambitious goals.
From Jeff Bezos ‘excursions to space tourism with Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s dream of establishing colonies on Mars to NASA’s launch of the James Webb space telescope and the United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe mission to Mars, it seems that space is back in fashion.
The Apollo astronauts’ significant lunar walk on July 20, 1969 marked the culmination of more than a decade of furious scientific progress, fueled by the fierce battle of the Cold War era between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the “space race.”
Decades later, and with the benefits of highly superior technology, private sector funding and a global abundance of scientific and engineering talent, a new space race is underway led by the world’s emerging economies and richest individuals.
A new participant in this new space race is the Saudi Space Commission, or SSC, launched three years ago by Royal Decree – its mission: To accelerate economic diversification, improve research and development and increase private sector participation in the global space industry.
Since its launch in December 2018, the UK’s state-funded space program has concluded agreements with the European Space Agency, the United Kingdom, France and Hungary for further cooperation.
The agency has also signed agreements with the airline giant Airbus, joined the International Astronautical Federation and launched brilliant scholarship programs to let Saudi students go to the world’s best university that offers courses in space science and aeronautics.
Although its space organization is relatively new, the kingdom has a long history of involvement in satellite technology, much of it derived from King Abdul Aziz’s City of Science and Technology in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia also played a key role in the Arab League’s formation of Arabsat, a satellite communications company, which launched its first satellite in 1985.
“The good thing is, you’re not starting from scratch,” Colonel Chris Hadfield, a retired Canadian astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station, told Arab News in an exclusive interview.
“Even NASA, when they were formed in the late 1950s, did not start from scratch. NACA, the forerunner of NASA, had been around since the 1920s, when the government realized that aeronautics was on the way.”
Hadfield is well known for its hugely popular video segments depicting life aboard the ISS, which famously includes a zero-gravity guitar set of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”.
A highly decorated astronaut, engineer and pilot, his many awards include the Order of Canada, the Meritorious Service Cross and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. He was also named the best test pilot in both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy and was inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame.
Hadfield has flown three space missions, built two space stations, completed two space walks, manned the shuttle and Soyuz and commanded the ISS.
Now retired, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, an advisor to SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, chairman of the Open Lunar Foundation and author of three international bestsellers. His TED talk on fear has been viewed 11 million times.
In Hadfield’s view, the SSC should now begin to clearly define its goals for the future of Saudi space exploration.
“The real key is to have a clear purpose for what the space agency is trying to achieve, goals that are in line with serving the people of Saudi Arabia in the short and long term,” he said.
The ISS remains a strong symbol of human brotherhood as well as the enormous technical and scientific possibilities offered when societies work towards a common goal.
The history of the space station began on July 17, 1975, when the Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and the American astronaut Deke Slayton shook hands in microgravity, after docking their spacecraft high above the French city of Metz.
The handshake was the by-product of a 1972 agreement between the two nations to collaborate on the Apollo-Soyuz test project. The United States built a docking module for the Apollo shuttle that was compatible with the Soviet docking system to allow for a flawless encounter.
Their meeting became a powerful symbol of unity, paving the way for the joint Shuttle-Mir program and later the ISS itself.
Building a space agency is no easy feat. As a multidisciplinary domain, the industry requires a wide range of skills and expertise. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in the sector and already has several achievements in its name.
In February 2019, the Kingdom launched its first domestically developed communications satellite – SGS-1 – from the Guyana Space Center. The launch was the result of a partnership between KACST and the American aviation giant Lockheed Martin.
In 2020, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest $ 2.1 billion in the space program as part of its Vision 2030 reform agenda, the kingdom’s long-term plan to diversify its economy away from oil and cover a wide range of next-generation industries.
“During the time we live in now, space is becoming a fundamental sector of the global economy, affecting all aspects of our life on earth,” said Prince Sultan bin Salman, the first Arab, Muslim and royal in space.
“The space industry and space economy are expected to grow to trillions of riyals as we move forward. We believe there are many opportunities in the space sector and we, in Saudi Arabia, intend to seize these opportunities at all levels.”
To excel in space, the kingdom will need an army of technical specialists in such diverse fields as cyber security, avionics and robotics, along with experts in propulsion, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
“If you look across the world at governments, there is a subset that works in areas that are naturally space-related, such as telecommunications, atmospheric physics, weather forecasts or the military side of threats; there is always the big advantage,” Hadfield told Arab News. the benefits of building a domestic space industry.
“It’s scientific to just try to understand the earth better. If you can go around (Earth) 16 times a day, if you can set up a geostationary satellite that looks at the whole (Arab) peninsula, that whole part of the world, there is a huge amount of information to collect that is really hard to capture from the surface.
– Then there is the technical development side. If you are going to challenge yourself to build a satellite or build rocket ships or train people to fly to space or be part of the space station, start building a permanent human home on the moon, it’s a big technical challenge and it’s good for the country from the academic side all the way to the manufacturing side. “
But more than the obvious economic, scientific and strategic benefits, Hadfield believes that investing in space technology also gives societies a sense of optimism and raises the public’s ambitions.
“Apart from scientific research and technological development, it raises people’s eyes beyond the horizon,” he said.
“Space exploration plays a significant role in inspiring people to visualize a different future, to try things with their own lives, to train themselves to acquire a new set of skills and to transform themselves into someone else in the pursuit of being a “astronaut that they otherwise could never have done with themselves. That, to me, is an important component.”
Saudi Arabia is well placed to take advantage of falling rocket launch costs, technological advances and a growing public interest in space exploration. Its willingness to work with other space organizations is also a foretaste of exciting collaborations to come.
After reflecting on his own career in space, Hadfield said that it is this type of human brotherhood, coupled with a lasting sense of duty, that will provide further innovations and new milestones in space exploration.
“It’s a life of service,” he said. “Service to agency, service to country and service to others.”