Imagine rockets being launched from the Azores, an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, carrying Portuguese-made satellites into space – and then picture the reusable space capsule returning to base.
Although this may seem like a futuristic scenario, elements of it may soon become reality. Portugal, after all, is working hard to become an astronautical nation, with the help of its many highly skilled engineers and the support of the European Union.
“Portugal has become quite modern in the last 20 years,” Ricardo Conde, president of the Portuguese Space Agency, tells DW. “Our universities produce excellent engineers. We have created human capital that we can leverage.”
Conde, whose agency was founded in 2019, says around 80 different companies now employ around 2,000 highly qualified staff in Portugal’s space industry. According to Conde, it generated a turnover of €200 million ($232.5 million) last year, with even greater productivity expected this year.
“That’s because we have another trump card: the Azores,” says Conde.
In fact, Portugal is currently building a spaceport on the Azores island of Santa Maria.
“It would be a big deal,” Ivo Vieira of space industry group AED Cluster Portugal told DW. “The European Space Rider spacecraft is scheduled to land there in 2028.”
It will float on giant parachutes and land right next to the old runway, which was built by the Americans during World War II and is now rarely used. Vieira says a rocket launch is planned for 2030, which “will send a South Korean satellite into orbit.”
He further said, several satellite communication antennas are already operational on the island.
Would Portugal want to compete with American spacecraft?
Is Portugal in the process of establishing its own Cape Canaveral? no way. Bruno Carvalho of spaceport operator ASC says the giant won’t rival a US rocket launch site.
“It is much smaller and is in addition to the European Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana,” explains Carvalho. “We will be a cost-effective launch site for small rockets with small satellites within the EU, which is strategically important.”
The space port’s remote location in the Atlantic also means that spacecraft can land safely in the ocean without posing a potential threat to anyone. Thirty-five people will be working at the spaceport once everything is installed and ready. This makes it a much smaller and cheaper operation than US launch sites.
Carvalho also wants the site to make use of local resources and hopes it can strengthen the local economy: “Maybe we can bring back the young people who have left the island.”
The first Azores spacecraft landing could happen later this year.
“Portuguese authorities have approved the first EU splashdown for the Phoenix 2.1 transport space capsule,” Marta Oliveira of ATMOS Space Cargo told DW.
Oliveira, co-founder of a German space logistics firm, aims to deliver satellites into orbit at low cost using reusable capsules. She jokingly describes her venture as the “FedEx of space.”
For now, the transporters are sent into space using SpaceX, although that could change, Oliveira says, because “we are in talks with European companies.” The plan is to land the spacecraft in the Atlantic near the Azores island of Santa Maria, with “ASC Spaceport to facilitate logistics and coordinate with local authorities, which is ideal for us.”
Portugal’s compact satellites
The satellites are still missing.
“Three Portuguese centers are developing these,” says Ricardo Conde. “One is the CEiiA consortium in Porto in the north, the other is the Open Cosmos multinational in the center of the University of Coimbra [Portugal] And the third is based in Lisbon, which builds satellites mainly in collaboration with the armed forces.”
They are small and used in commercial, military, and mixed applications such as communications, Earth and ocean observations and, more recently, fighting wildfires.
CEiiA, which also develops mobility and aircraft technology, is already making big progress.
“We entered the space sector in 2018,” Andre Dias, responsible for the consortium’s downstream division, tells DW. “Our aim is to develop an industry for high-resolution satellites.”
To achieve this, a research and development facility will be set up in the north of Portugal, near the city of Guimarães, “to partner with the city there and the local university, because we want to increase our production capacity four or five times.”
Dias says CEIIA has the capacity to build four civilian satellites each year weighing 500 kilograms (about 1,100 pounds). He says demand is continuously increasing and capacity expansion could open the door to more international contracts.
“Decentralization can be seen between the big European space countries like Germany and France and the smaller countries like Portugal, so what we’re seeing is a kind of democratization of space travel,” says Dias. “We specialize in small satellites that cost between €20 and 30 million, not large satellites that can cost up to €500 million.”
The Portuguese Space Agency’s plans are modest, aiming to create compact units.
“By 2030 we will have 30 satellites in space, some of them in collaboration with Spain,” Conde told DW. “We want to bring international players to Portugal to work with them and work on European initiatives.”
He further said, this also applies to the military sector, which is becoming increasingly important.
This article was translated from German.