Sweden opens first satellite launch port on mainland EU – DW – 13-01-2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson inaugurated the EU’s first orbital launch complex for the mainland on Friday.
Spaceport Esrange, the new facility at the Esrange Space Center near the northern Swedish city of Kiruna should complement the EU’s current launch capacity in French Guiana in South America.
“Europe has its foothold in space and will keep it,” von der Leyen said. She added that small satellites were essential to track natural disasters in real time and, in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, to ensure global security.
The European Space Race
Different projects in Europe are competing to launch the first satellite from Europe. Earlier this week, an attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from British soil – from a Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 that took off from a spaceport in Cornwall – ended in failure.
The first satellite launch from Spaceport Esrange is expected at the end of 2023, with reusable rockets to be tested at the site, according to the Swedish Space Agency. In Sweden, the rockets being developed are “micro-rockets”, about 30 meters (98.4 ft) long, which can carry a payload of several hundred kilograms.
The Swedish state company is in discussions with several rocket manufacturers and customers who want to put their satellites into orbit. With a reusable rocket project called Themis, Esrange will also host ESA’s trials of rockets capable of landing back on Earth, like SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk.
Arctic Spaceport
The large desolate forests are the reason why the Swedish Space Center is located here, at the foot of “Radar Hill”, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
Kiruna, with a population of about 23,000, is one of the few major settlements in the region – a city built around the world’s largest underground iron ore mine, where Sweden also believes a large deposit of rare earths exists, it announced on Thursday.
The Esrange space center, founded by the European Space Agency in 1966 to study the atmosphere and the Northern Lights phenomenon, has invested heavily in its facilities to be able to send satellites into space.
More than 600 suborbital rockets have already been launched from this remote corner of Sweden’s far north. Although these rockets can reach space at heights of 260 kilometers, they cannot orbit the Earth.
dh/msh (AP, AFP, dpa)