- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
- US trade gap narrowest in five months as imports slip
- Stay and 'you are going to die': Florida braces for next hurricane
- Geoffrey Hinton, soft-spoken godfather of AI
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for 'foundational' AI breakthroughs
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China slaps provisional tariffs on EU brandy imports
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free soon after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China says to take anti-dumping measures against EU brandy imports
- China stocks rally fizzles on stimulus worries amid Asia retreat
- China stocks rally peters out on stimulus worries amid Asia retreat
- Taiwan's Foxconn says building world's largest 'superchip' plant
- Nobel literature jury may go for non-Western writer
- From Bolivia to Indonesia, deforestation continues apace
- China holds off on fresh stimulus but 'confident' will hit growth target
- German suspect in 'Maddie' case faces verdict in sex crimes trial
- Top economic official 'confident' China will hit 2024 growth target
- COP29 fight looms over climate funds for developing world
- Shanghai stocks soar to extend stimulus rally amid Asia-wide drop
- Will Tesla's robotaxi reveal live up to hype?
- 'Invisibility' and quantum computing tipped for physics Nobel
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street falls
- 'Dark day': Victims mourned around the globe on Oct. 7 anniversary
- Mission to probe smashed asteroid launches despite hurricane
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street slips
- Europe's asteroid mission Hera launches despite hurricane
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street retreats
- What is microRNA? Nobel-winning discovery explained
- Weather may delay launch of mission to study deflected asteroid
- China to flesh out economic stimulus plans after bumper rally
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on US jobs data
- World marks anniversary of Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- Tunisia incumbent Saied set to win presidential vote: exit polls
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
CMSC | -0.06% | 24.555 | $ | |
RBGPF | -0.46% | 60.52 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.55% | 24.926 | $ | |
SCS | -0.19% | 12.925 | $ | |
BTI | -0.16% | 35.145 | $ | |
NGG | 0.57% | 65.855 | $ | |
AZN | -0.29% | 76.65 | $ | |
RIO | -4.77% | 66.45 | $ | |
GSK | -1.54% | 38.045 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.29% | 6.97 | $ | |
RELX | 1.02% | 46.515 | $ | |
VOD | -0.26% | 9.665 | $ | |
BCE | -0.8% | 33.265 | $ | |
BCC | -0.03% | 141.23 | $ | |
JRI | 0.2% | 13.206 | $ | |
BP | -3.75% | 31.942 | $ |
Arctic Sweden in race for Europe's satellite launches
As the mercury drops to minus 20 Celsius, a research rocket lifts off from one of the world's northernmost space centres, its burner aglow in the twilight of Sweden's snowy Arctic forests.
Hopes are high that rockets like this could carry satellites as early as next year, in what could be the first satellite launch from a spaceport in continental Europe.
At the launch pad, about an hour from the mining town of Kiruna, there's not a person in sight, only the occasional reindeer herd.
The vast deserted forests are the reason the Swedish space centre is located here, at the foot of "Radar Hill", some 200 kilometres (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
"In this area we have 5,200 square kilometres (2,007 square miles) where no one lives, so we can easily launch a rocket that flies into this area and falls down without anyone getting harmed," Mattias Abrahamsson, head of business development at the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), tells AFP.
Founded by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1966 to study the atmosphere and Northern Lights phenomenon, the Esrange space centre has invested heavily in its facilities in recent years to be able to send satellites into space.
At a huge new hangar big enough to house two 30-meter rockets currently under assembly elsewhere, Philip Pahlsson, head of the "New Esrange" project, pulls up a heavy blue door.
Under the rosy twilight of this early afternoon, construction machines nearby can be seen busily completing work on three new launch pads.
"Satellite launches will start to take place from here next year," Pahlsson says.
"This has been a major development, the biggest step we have taken since the inception of Esrange."
More than 600 suborbital rockets have already been launched from this remote corner of Sweden's far north, including the Suborbital Express 3 whose late November launch AFP witnessed as the temperature stood at -20 degrees Celsius, or minus four degrees Fahrenheit.
While these rockets are capable of reaching space at altitudes of 260 kilometres, they're not able to orbit Earth.
- Booming business -
But with Europe gearing up to send its first satellite into space soon, Esrange is looking forward to joining a select club of space centres that include Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Europe's space hub in South America, Kourou in French Guiana.
Various projects in Europe -- in Portugal's Azores, Norway's Andoya island, Spain's Andalusia and the UK's Shetland Islands among others -- are all vying to launch the first satellite from the European continent.
"We think we are clearly the most advanced," says the SSC, which is aiming to launch at the end of 2023 or early 2024.
The satellite industry is booming, and 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.
While the Plesetsk base in northwestern Russia carried out several satellite launches in the post-Cold War period, no other country in Europe has done so.
- Small satellites driving demand -
So why is the continent -- so far from the Equator, which is more suited for satellite launches -- suddenly seeing such a space industry boom?
"Satellites are becoming smaller and cheaper, and instead of launching one big satellite you spread it out over multiple small satellites and that drives the demand," explains Pahlsson.
More objects were launched into space in 2021 than ever before. And more records are set to be broken in the coming years.
Orbiting the North and South Poles is enough for many satellites, making sites like Esrange more attractive.
In addition, having a launch site close to European clients spares them and their satellites long boat journeys to Kourou.
In Sweden, like in the rest of Europe, the rockets being developed are "micro-rockets".
These are around 30 metres long, capable of carrying a payload of several hundred kilos. In the future, SSC is aiming for payloads of more than a tonne.
But working in the harsh Arctic climate "comes with challenges", SSC says.
With temperatures regularly dropping to -20 or -30 degrees Celsius, special attention needs to be paid to the metals used, which become more fragile in the cold.
The war in Ukraine -- where the engines for the European Vega rocket are manufactured -- and the abrupt end to the West's space cooperation with Russia have meanwhile increased interest in having spaceports on the continent.
"Europe needs independent access to space. The horrible situation in Ukraine has changed the space business," notes Pahlsson.
M.García--CPN