Sweden opens orbital launch site looking for users
WASHINGTON — Swedish and European officials inaugurated what they called Europe’s first orbital launch site on Jan. 13, but it is unclear who will launch from the facility and when.
During a brief ceremony at the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden attended by the king and Sweden’s prime minister as well as the president of the European Commission, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) declared a new orbital launch facility at the site, which has long hosted sounding rocket launches, is ready to receive customers.
“With Spaceport Esrange, the EU gains a strategic asset that provides independent access to space,” says Anna Kinberg Batra, Chairman of the Board of SSC. “This will be crucial to achieving EU and UN sustainability goals as well as security and defense strategies.”
These views, particularly the importance of space for European security almost a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were echoed by other participants. – The current geopolitical situation, not least, of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has shown how important it is that the EU has access to space, says Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
“It’s a big moment for Europe. It’s a big moment for Europe’s space industry. The first orbital launch site on the European mainland,” said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. “This spaceport offers an independent European gateway to space. “
Europe already has independent access to space through the French Guiana spaceport operated by the French space agency CNES, which hosts the Ariane and Vega launches. The spaceport is also renovating a pad to support several small launch vehicles.
Officials said little about the launch site itself or potential users of it. The site has a launcher integration facility and three pads. One pad is for suborbital rockets and “microlaunchers” that can place up to 300 kilograms in sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), while a second pad will be used for launch vehicles that can take up to 1,200 kilograms in SSO. A third pad is reserved for testing reusable vehicles.
SSC said the first user of the site will be Themis, a reusable launch vehicle demonstrator being developed by ArianeGroup with support from the European Space Agency to test vertical takeoff and landing technology. These launches may begin later this year. But ArianeGroup, in a roadmap for Themi’s development, said tests at Esrange would be limited to low-altitude “hop” tests that only go a few tens of meters high. Future higher altitude tests would take place in French Guiana.
At the event, officials highlighted the presence of Isar Aerospace, a German company that develops the small Spectrum launch vehicle. Isar conducts engine tests at Esrange, but in its own statement the company said it has no plans to conduct orbital launches there. The first launch of Spectrum is planned for later this year from Andøya Spaceport in Norway.
Another German launch vehicle developer, Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), also conducts tests at Esrange. RFA announced on January 11 that it will conduct the first orbital launch of its RFA One rocket at the end of the year from SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands north of Scotland.
RFA noted in its announcement that it has exclusive access to a pad at SaxaVord, a multi-user site, with the pad and launch pad that will host the rocket completed late last year. “The RFA launch pad is therefore the first for vertical-orbit rocket launches in the UK and mainland Europe,” the company said.
SSC said in a statement that it expects the first orbital launch from Esrange to happen around the end of the year, but did not disclose who would carry it out. “SSC is in advanced discussions with several potential rocket partners for future orbital launches from Spaceport Esrange,” it said.