In the Arctic Circle, in a hangar surrounded by snow and in an area where groups of reindeer can only be seen from time to time for tens of kilometers, the Swedish Space Agency (SSC) inaugurated this Friday, about ten degrees below zero, the first satellite launch center on the European continent.
The new facility, at the Esrange space base associated with the European Space Agency (ESA), in the Lapland region, seeks to accommodate the ever-increasing demand for satellite launches and offer greater autonomy to the EU at a very sensitive geopolitical moment.
The center wants to compete with others that are being created on the European continent and manage to launch the first satellite from the EU continental territory at the beginning of 2024.
"The current geopolitical situation, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, show how important it is for the European Union to have access to space," Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stressed in Jukkasjärvi, some 200 kilometers above the polar circle. Arctic, where he has inaugurated the Esrange base together with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and King Gustav of Sweden.
A center that had already existed for decades and was used for satellite ground control services and stratospheric balloon launches, as well as for launching small research rockets.
"This spaceport offers an independent European gateway to space and is exactly the infrastructure we need," stressed Von der Leyen,
The European Space Agency already has, like the United States, China and Russia, a spaceport, but it is at the Kourou base, in French Guyana, in the middle of the South American jungle, from where half a thousand satellites have been launched for half a year. century, but which for a few years has generated conflicts due to robberies and demonstrations due to the social crisis, inequality and unemployment in this outermost French region.
Traveling to the launch port of the European Space Agency in Kourou, from where the Ariane rockets are launched, and taking the materials by boat, is also expensive.
One of the new rocket hangars at the Esrange Space Center in Jukkasjarvi (Sweden). JONATHAN NACKSTRAND (AFP)
With the new facility, the EU wants to strengthen its capacity to launch satellites into space.
"The benefits of the small satellites that will be launched from here are enormous," said the president of the Community Executive in Sweden, who holds the presidency of the EU this semester and who has organized the trip in which EL PAÍS has participated as a guest.
Small satellites are becoming very important to track nuclear disasters in real time, to gather information on the climate crisis and also to guarantee global security, Von der Leyen has insisted.
"Today, we know that the brave Ukrainian forces effectively use small satellites to track the movements of Russian troops," he said.
Indeed, the Starlink satellites of Elon Musk's company have become crucial for Ukraine.
Advancing space programs and boosting the base of Erlarger and cooperation programs will help European competitiveness, said the director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, who also participated in the inauguration of the new Arctic facilities.
“Europe also needs European satellites and once they are in orbit they will have to be operated and they will need space for terrestrial productivity to fulfill their missions,” added Stefan Gardefjord, chief executive of the state-owned Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). .
The SSC believes that the number of satellites could reach 100,000 by 2040 compared to the current 5,000 operational satellites.
Gardefjord believes that the new facilities could be a game-changer due to their versatility — they also work on the European Space Agency's Themis program to recover the vehicles used to launch the devices — and the location of the Erlarger base.
For some types of satellite, location in the arctic may offer advantages to Earth observation satellites, for example.
Also, while temperatures many degrees below zero can challenge the materials used, it can reduce launch costs.
The Erlarger base, which takes advantage of an area of about 5,200 square kilometers, according to the SSC, has existed since 1972, is about 40 kilometers from the small town of Kiruna.
A settlement of typical Swedish red and yellow houses located on top of the largest iron mine in the world, which is changing its location house by house about 3 kilometers further east in order to continue exploiting the deposits and also due to the instability of the land of the mine.
The path to developing the base, however, may not be entirely smooth, Erlanger is competing with other European projects and has yet to find big ones.
In addition, the expansion of the space center, its military implications and applications, coupled with the development of the mine, cause concern among the Sami minority, the indigenous people in the area, with a long tradition of reindeer herding and fishing.
"The impact of the activities and the militarization of the Arctic is a sensitive issue and very worrying," lamented Stefan Mikaelsson, vice president of the board of the Swedish Sami assemblies, to a group of journalists in Kiruna.
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