EU opens first mainland satellite launch port in Arctic Sweden | DW News
EU opens first mainland satellite launch port in Arctic Sweden | DW News
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson inaugurated the European Union’s first mainland orbital launch complex on Friday. Spaceport Esrange, the new facility at Esrange Space Center near the northern Swedish city of Kiruna should complement the EU’s current launching capabilities 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 crucial to tracking natural disasters in real-time and, in the light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, to help guarantee global security.
Various projects in Europe are vying to launch the first satellite from Europe. Earlier this week, an attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from UK 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 in late 2023, with reusable rockets to be tested at the site, the Swedish Space Corporation said. In Sweden, the rockets being developed are “micro-rockets,” around 30 meters (98.4 feet) long, capable of carrying a payload of several hundred kilos.
The Swedish state-owned company is in discussions with several rocket makers and clients who want to put their satellites in orbit. With a reusable rocket project called Themis, Esrange will also host ESA’s trials of rockets able to land back on Earth, like those of SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk.
The vast deserted forests are the reason the Swedish space center is located here, at the foot of “Radar Hill,” some 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
Kiruna, with a population of around 23,000, is one of the few larger settlements in the region — a town built around the world’s largest underground iron ore mine, where Sweden also believes a large rare earths deposit is located, as it announced on Thursday.
Founded by the European Space Agency in 1966 to study the atmosphere and Northern Lights phenomenon, the Esrange space center 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. While these rockets are capable of reaching space at altitudes of 260 kilometers, they’re not able to orbit Earth.
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That’s cool an all but aren’t Rocket susceptible to cold weather? isn’t that why the challenger exploded became the night before the flight the temperature went below 0?
Very cool! 👋👍
The happiest, *_least_* corrupt countries with the *_highest_* standard of living in the world are the Nordic countries—Denmark (with its autonomous territory Faroe Islands and Greenland, part of Denmark), Finland (with its autonomous region Åland), Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. They are socialist countries and most of their citizens are atheist, agnostic, or skeptic. 💕☮🌎🌌
Britain: We are a space nation
Sweden: No you are not!
Positive news! Finally. Although the ESA could use better internet connection 😂
Congrats Sweden!
but as a side note:
a bit odd having English still being EU’s working language when only 0.8% of the population lives in a country with English as an official language and no country has English set as their official EU language, isn’t it? Here’s a german giving a speech in Sweden in the context of a francophone-majority organization. 3 perfectly good options to choose from. Efforts to break free from USA’s hold on western space industry become a bit pointless if the US keeps bowing to Anglophone cultural hegemony.
Why are they cutting the Ukrainian flag? Aren’t they supposed to help us?
But isn’t it way more expensive to send things to space from the artic as compared to from the tropics?
i made a preposition to be like here because , we had problems with that non flying objects with retards blah blah and like usa word drop the world blah blah like leaving all behind , they knew something more than we did i guess , they could have gonne for hitting children in the head , so it was about positioning.
Millions of tons of rare earth minerals found in Sweden and now a spaceport too. EU will become completely self sufficent in the future
hmmm. looks like a prelude to escape earth.
Northern Haarpy ..
That’s not a "european" space port, it’s a swedish space port that has been there for a very long time but im very happy that it seems like their going to start using it even more and im very proud of my contry
as long as we cant land the rockets, it will be very expensive
Great job Sweden!!
It is always good to have a launch facility on home turf but being so far away from the equator cuts the spacecraft’s capability from taking advantage of earth’s spin to achieve orbital velocities!
This is why they can only launch small satellites!!!
The rocket pictured behind the lectern looks similar to a SpaceX Falcon 9. This must be aspirational for the ESA since they don’t have a rocket that lands for reuse.
Congrats 🙏🎉💖
Super expensive space technologies 😅.
Finally sviiiden!!!
Шольцу не стоит расстраиваться – если где-то что-то падает, то в другом месте поднимается. 🇩🇪
Рейтинги властей в Германии снизились, зато цены на газ повысились.🔥 Доходы жителей ЕС падают, а доходы американского оружейного бизнеса растут. 💰🤣🤣🤣🤣
This is insanely important. Congrats and best of success from germany.
Im worried this will attract the attention of aliens… We dont need more aliens in Sweden!
Fires one tiny spacecraft, and popping bottles already. Thats just starters, there is a massive mountain to climb.
Well that will solve the climate crisis. 😉 Must be pretty crowded up there now. 😂🤣
Space Vikingsss !!!!!
Well maybe we can do an european space station one day, americans seem to have set their eyes on the moon and mars, but i think it is still more important to stick around here on earth and solve our problems here and for that technologies around earth in geo stationary orbit might be needed.
The greatest thing to happen in Sweden since ABBA!
We as eueope need to do.more such things. After Ukraine won against rusdia i gooe we euopeans will gdt rogheter and get a strong friendly continent
Together we are stronger!
If Europe wasn’t climate delusional. Maybe US and EU could have worked together in the space race against China and Russia.
Aint right space nov university suitable for Sweden good lock location and symtom the future.
being less dependent on America is always a good step forward
Hello from Romania, go Europe!
The UK has had a launch capability in Scotland for around a decade a Military Spaceport run by QinetiQ in the Hebrides, it launched 2 American rockets into space for NATO war games.
Shame the Virgin Orbit UK launch last week from Spaceport Cornwall in South East England, 2nd stage failed, losing all the satellites on board. They plan to try again later this year.
But I have high hopes for the 2 new Spaceports; coming online in the North of Scotland this year.
And these are the same people forcing you to believe they care about pollution snd climate change. They continue to create space debris in their lack of wisdom of the future adverse effects
Go Sweden Democrats! We need you in Europe!
this is not spaceport these bases are to launch nuclear strike on Russia.
It will fall down sooner, and there is no need for settalites, and all may harm the recovering ozene layer. Sign ceased fire agreement with 🇷🇺 Russia instead of increasing orbit debris.
As usual, it is all animation. Too many people are waking up to flat earth, so now these countries are stepping up their "space race" game. Also, you can always tell when the comments are fabricated/manufactured. There is never a shred of channel content on "those" channels who are posting "manufactured" comments.
Finally, some positive news!
Rather than tracking disaster and waiting it to happen it’s better to prevent it by tackling climate change and moving towards green energy.
Its great, but most spaceports are as close of equator as possible, what kind of payloads could this spaceport be usefull for exactly?
Europe can never have a competitive satelite launch industry, because it’s too far north, but at least they still do a little.
I hope they will collaborate with SpaceX for future Moon and Mars missions. Because ESA is very good in building modules for space indeed.
No EU aren’t welcome here on my ground. Neither Nato or USA. They remains enemies. I’m living here!
Josef Assb@nger
Congrats to Sweden for achieving such great achievements.
From your neighbourly brothers in Norway
Sad that Esa is such a failure
kritstersson e svag ingen ledare
German double audio fire!!!!!!!
För kung och rymden🇸🇪🇸🇪