Just days after Britain’s failed satellite launch, Sweden was inaugurated on Friday as the new launch site as it races to become the first country to send a satellite into orbit from continental Europe.
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson cut the ribbon during a ceremony at the “Spaceport Esrange”, described as “the first satellite launch complex on the European mainland”.
“There are many reasons why we need to speed up the European Space Programme,” said von der Leyen. “Europe has a foothold in space and will keep it.”
First quarter of 2024
The site is an extension of the Esrange Space Center in the Swedish Arctic, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the city of Kiruna.
About 15 million euros ($16.3 million) have been invested in the site, which will complement Europe’s space hub in Kourou in French Guiana.
It will also provide a launch capability when cooperation with Russia and the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan has been limited by the war in Ukraine.
Esrange’s state-owned operator, Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), aims to launch its first satellite from the site “in the first quarter of 2024”, a spokesman told AFP on Friday.
Sweden leads
This would make Sweden the first country in continental Europe – excluding Russia – to launch a satellite from the ground.
Other European spaceports are also in the race.
Projects in Portugal’s Azores archipelago, Norway’s Andoya island, Spain’s Andalusia and England, among others, are all competing to be the first to succeed.
Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), the German specialist in small launchers that are increasingly used by countries and companies that send more compact satellites into space, said that the first launch will take place at SaxaVord in the Shetland Islands at the end of 2023.
An attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from Britain – on a Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 that took off from a spaceport in Cornwall – ended in failure on Tuesday.
The satellite industry is booming, with the number of satellites in operation by 2040 expected to reach 100,000, the SSC said, compared to 5,000 today.
With a reusable rocket project called Themis, Esrange will also host tests of European Space Agency rockets that can land back on Earth, similar to those used by SpaceX, one of the companies owned by billionaire Elon Musk.