Sweden aims to launch satellites to space from Spaceport Esrange by mid-2022

Sweden is striving to strengthen its ability to launch satellites into space. Spaceport Esrange, outside the city of Kiruna in the country's far north, is set to start operations in the summer of 2022. Esrange began as a launching range and research centre in the 1960s.

Since 1966, the facility has launched about 600 rockets and weather balloons, mostly for research purposes. Its location, 200 kilometres above the Arctic region and surrounded by immense wilderness, is viewed as particularly advantageous for research and launching satellites. Currently, the European Union (EU) lacks the capability to launch satellites from European soil, which Sweden hopes to overcome by modernising a rocket range built in the 1960s.

12-year loan to make reusable rockets a reality

The European Spaceport is located in French Guiana, a French overseas department, in the northeastern portion of South America. Surprisingly, the investment in expanding satellite capability in Europe does not come from the EU, but rather from a financing deal between the state-owned space business SSC and the Nordic Investment Bank for SEK 120 million ($13.6 million). The 12-year loan will be used to fund investments required to make reusable rockets a reality.

"With this cash, we'll be able to deploy satellites into space. With the current message, we'll get a basic ability in place. Then there is more room for development," New Esrange project manager Philip Phlsson told Swedish Radio.

The government made the first investment in the test operations in 2018, allocating SEK 60 million ($6.8 million). Whereas, SSC announced on Twitter, "We're getting close now. A new loan agreement with @nib will finance the last pieces of the planned spaceport capability at Esrange."

"Europe has lagged behind in space technology for the first 50 years. Both the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA) are investing substantially now, and Sweden can participate in the global space scene with our state-of-the-art space base Esrange," said SSC head of strategy Stefan Gustafsson, Sputnik reported.

Sweden will join an exclusive group of roughly a dozen countries across the world that have their own satellite capabilities as a result of this. Satellite launches can be used for a variety of objectives, including gathering information about the planet, atmosphere, and oceans, monitoring the environment and weather, and deforestation and forest fires.

(Image: PTI/Representative)