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SPACE races are not just a US or Russian phenomenon – Spain's north-easternmost region is at it, too.
The Catalunya Space Agency is expected to be up and running within the next couple of weeks, and its first nanosatellite is due for launch as early as March 20, according to regional government minister for digital policy, Jordi Puigneró.
Within the framework of Catalunya's NewSpace Strategy, the future home-grown 'NASA' will be a 'key entity' for 'public and private agents' in 'everything in the country relating to the space sector', Puigneró explains.
Its first mission is just around the corner: In less than two months, a nanosatellite – basically, a very small satellite – will be sent up into orbit from the first-ever space base to be built on earth, the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at exactly 07.07 mainland Spain time.
At the moment, the Cosmodrome is one of the busiest space bases on the planet, as it provides significant support to the International Space Station (ISS).
The idea of the nanosatellite, which will be the first in the world to have ever been launched, is to reinforce 5G technology and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Bringing mobile phone and internet coverage to remote country villages
Catalunya's regional government signed contracts this week for its design, building, launch and the subsequent usage of data this nanosatellite, and a second one set to be fired up later on, produces. The company Sateliot will be developing them, and Open Cosmos constructing them, and they will provide internet connectivity services to the whole of the region's four provinces of Girona, Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida by communicating with and sending data to sensors set up throughout these territories.
Sensors, crucially, will be installed in remote rural parts of the region which currently have no, or very poor, mobile phone and internet coverage – vital services for preventing population exodus from countryside locations.
Huge swathes of Spain suffer from what is known as 'depopulation' or 'emptiness' – too far to commute from, diminishing villages lose their working-age population to larger towns and cities, and those left behind are collectively ageing and eventually dying out; companies cannot set up and younger adults cannot work from home in villages with scanty or non-existent internet or phone signals, and telecommunications firms avoid extending their networks to these parts as there would not be enough customers to make it economically-viable to do so.
With satellite-based coverage, signals would reach even the depths of the countryside without requiring any loss-making investment on the part of network operators.
Jobs for 1,200 and a multi-million turnover
The NewSpace Strategy mission statement is 'to promote a new high added-value economic industry that generates opportunities, economic growth and employment' using diminutive satellites that cost a lot less to produce and orbit the earth at a much lower altitude than existing, larger versions.
As for the employment generation side, Puigneró says the Catalunya Space Station will create around 1,200 new jobs, and produce a turnover close to €300 million within three or four years or, at least, by the year 2025 at the very latest.
Initially, the regional government will invest €2.5m, the cost of building and launching the first two nanosatellites, with the aim of improving connectivity and getting clearer, more detailed real-time images of the earth; in total, the budget is €18m, around half of which will be spent on the space port and the remainder on the propulsion centre, and it is likely this sum will be part-financed by the European Union's NextGenerationEU fund.
Just under €575,000 have been put aside for building the first triple-unit, or 3U, nanosatellite.
Puigneró says opposition members of the regional government warned the space station could encroach on the State's jurisdiction, but he stresses this is not the case: “Space is like international waters, and States have control over up to 50 kilometres above ground, but in this case, the nanosatellites will only be within the earth's atmosphere, no higher than that,” the minister explains.
A match for the 'rich and powerful'
Does this ambitious and pioneering scheme mean the Catalunya regional flag could end up joining the other five already on the moon?
“I'm sorry to disappoint everyone, but we've no intention of sending an astronaut into space,” laments Puigneró.
“Mainly because we're talking about nanosatellites; there isn't room for astronauts on those.”
Given that they only tend to weigh about 10 kilos, this is probably fairly obvious.
Despite being no heavier than a standard airline hand-luggage case, nanosatellites cost around €1m to design and construct; but this is small fry compared with a 'standard' satellite – and you get what you pay for. Their shelf life is much shorter, a maximum of four years on average, and they orbit up to about 2,000 kilometres, much less than the typical 32,000 kilometres of a 'mainstream' version.
The advantages, though, are mainly, according to Puigneró, about 'democratisation of space' – a country being able to operate its own satellites and not having to rely on larger, wealthier nations to do it for them.
“You don't have to be as big and powerful as the United States to send satellites into orbit, that's the message we're sending out,” the minister clarifies.
Climate change and forest fire monitoring
The second nanosatellite is expected to go up into orbit midway through the year 2022, and is double the size – six units, or '6U' – and comes in at just over €1.7m to build.
Its purpose will be very different: Capturing footage of the earth from space in various spectral bands, allowing scientists to study what happens down there.
This ongoing observation will provide information that can help in the battle against climate change, showing its effects and especially vulnerable areas or features, as well as monitoring forest fire risk and actual wildfires, says Rafel Jordà of Open Cosmos.
Managing and monitoring both nanosatellites will be from the Ground Station based at the Montsec Astronomical Observatory (OAdm) in Sant Esteve de la Sarga (Lleida province), and the data obtained by its operators will be given to universities, research centres, technology centres, and businesses.
Lleida-Alguaire airport will host a space port and propulsion centre serving the 'NASA of Catalunya', and a business park with a space technology education centre for corporate visitors will open at a later date in an as-yet unspecified location in the region, Puigneró explains.
Both the nanosatellites will have names – and the next generation of space engineers and internet users will choose them.
The children's programme InfoK on the channel Super3 will run a competition among its young viewers, with the two winners getting the chance to baptise the miniature satellites.
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