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The Spanish space industry, ranking fifth in Europe, has seen remarkable growth over the past decade, with turnover exceeding 800 million euros and employing around 3,500 technicians as of 2018. Spain’s leadership role in the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2017 to 2019 coincided with crucial negotiations for EU investments in space programs from 2021 to 2027, estimated at approximately 12 billion euros. Key projects during this period include the development of Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets, the ExoMars 2020 mission, new Sentinel satellites, and future collaborations with NASA on lunar orbit space stations. Spain increased its ESA contributions substantially, enhancing its industry’s participation in both ESA and EU space programs like Copernicus.
Spain boasts significant achievements such as the PAZ satellite launch, making it the third European country with independent Earth observation capabilities, and the manufacture of the CHEOPS space observatory. The country is a global leader in satellite design, manufacturing, and operation, ranking seventh worldwide. Spanish institutions like INTA contribute advanced instruments to international missions, including NASA’s Mars exploration projects. Spain also hosts critical facilities for the Galileo navigation system and holds substantial stakes in EU space surveillance programs. Emerging companies like PLD Space are pioneering reusable launchers and new spaceports. Despite the successes, challenges remain, including limited startup investment and debates over establishing a dedicated Spanish space agency. Overall, Spain’s space sector is adapting to new global markets and collaborative business models, aiming to expand its global market share in the coming years.
Spanish space companies play an important role in the different trends of the new commercialisation of space.
According to figures published in 2018 , the space industry in Spain, the fifth largest in Europe, already accounts for a turnover of just over 800 million euros – a figure that has doubled in just 10 years – which employs some 3,500 technicians. It is the fifth at European level.
In 2017, Spain assumed the presidency of the Ministerial Council of the European Space Agency, which it will hold until 2019, which is an opportunity to do things that not only benefit the agency as a whole but also the Spanish space industry, as the investments that the EU will make between 2021 and 2027 will be negotiated in that period. estimated at about 12,000 million euros, mostly through the ESA.
Relevant programs in this period are to advance in the development of the Ariane 6 rockets, Vega-C, which have their first launch scheduled for 2020 and 2019 respectively, the launch of the ExoMars 2020 mission (if there are no further delays), and the definition and development of new Sentinel satellites. An important part of ESA’s activity will also be to continue collaborating with NASA and participating in the definition and development of a new space station, probably in orbit around the Moon.
A first decision by the Government of Spain in this regard was to increase the contribution to ESA to around 1,500 million euros in the period from 2017 to 2024, which represents an increase of 600 million euros over the figure previously committed. This contributes to greater participation of Spanish industry in the agency’s elective programmes and to position Spanish companies to participate with a chance of success in other programmes, such as those managed by the European Union such as Copernicus or commercial projects. In general, this is good news because Spain has been obtaining a return greater than its contribution for more than 20 years.
Recent successes of the Spanish space industry are the launch of the PAZ satellite, which makes us the third country in Europe with its own capacity for observation and control from space of natural resources, territory and infrastructures, security, defence and borders, humanitarian crises or the manufacture in our country of the CHEOPS space observatory.
Spain is, in fact, one of the few countries capable of designing, building and operating complete satellites and that is something to take advantage of when developing business opportunities. It is, in fact, the seventh world power in the manufacture of satellites.
Spain also has experience when it comes to developing instruments that are integrated into satellites or probes, such as the TWINS instrument for Temperature and Winds for InSight of NASA’s InSight probe. They were developed by the Center for Astrobiology of
Another recent success of the Spanish space industry is that the European Union has decided to install the security surveillance segment (GSMC) of the Galileo navigation system in Spain. It is, perhaps, a double success since the service center (GSC) of the Galileo system was already in Spain, and it is not at all common for two centers to coincide in the same country. This is coupled with a 20% share in the EU’s SST (Space Surveillance & Tracking) programme.
And so is the fact that PLD Space has been the company selected by ESA for the development of a European microsatellite launcher (below 300 kg) with the Miura 5, a rocket whose first stage will be recoverable, an increasingly clear trend in the industry in order to reduce launch costs. It is the first time that ESA has publicly called for the development of a commercial launcher outside its fleet. PLD Space is also involved in the development of what will be Europe’s spaceport for the launch of small satellites into polar and synchronous orbits to the Sun.
Other names that can be mentioned as outstanding Spanish companies in the commercialization of space are:
– Deimos Imaging, which although now a subsidiary of the Canadian company UrtheCast Corp., is a Spanish company specializing in Earth observation systems and remote sensing products and services;
– GMV, a Spanish privately owned multinational specialized in supplying systems, products and support services to space agencies, satellite operators and manufacturers, and European institutions;
– Hisdesat, which is a satellite government services operator to act in the areas of defence, security, intelligence and foreign affairs;
– Hispasat, a satellite telecommunications operator
– Indra, which has a division specialising in the use of space technologies applied to military operations;
– Sener, which offers engineering and production services and system integration;
– o Zero 2 Infinity, which works on the development of a rocket that is launched from a balloon.
Although the Spanish fabric of Space 2.0 is not only made up of large companies: recently a group of young people won one of the categories of NASA’s 2018 Space Apps Challenge hackathon, specifically
Of course, not everything is going to be good news as there is some scepticism in the sector and there is a lack of investment in new companies; it can be said that only in the US is the startup financing model working. However, there are small Spanish companies, such as Satlantis, that are leading their sectors, as is the case of earth observation and the services derived from them.
In this context, there is some debate about whether it would be necessary to create a Spanish space agency. On the one hand, it would make it possible to bring together in a single decision-making centre all the competences and activities related to space, in theory optimising and simplifying things. But there are also opinions against it because they believe that the current volume of investment does not make it necessary. It is a role that since 1986 has been carried out by the CDTI, the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology.
Be that as it may, what seems clear is that it is necessary to know how to adapt to this moment of change, with new countries and clients to work with and new business models in which we are increasingly seeing how the space industry is beginning to collaborate with other industries with which until recently it had little to do. It is also important to maintain the level of effort as we still have room for improvement as Spain’s market share in the global market is lower than its economic weight, even despite how well things have been going in recent years.
