Portuguese Government Authorizes €9.25 Million in Funding for New Space Agency
The Portuguese government has authorized annual funding of €9.25 million ($10.25 million) for the Portuguese Space Agency (PSA), spanning between 2023 and 2027, according to a resolution of the Council of Ministers from earlier this month, as published in the Diário da República. The still-new space agency is looking to implement potentially ambitious plans by Portugal to make its stamp on the space economy.
While Portugal has been a member of the ESA since 2000, the Portuguese Space Agency, based at Santa Maria Island in the Azores, is one of the world’s newest space agencies. It was created in 2019 as part of the Portugal Space 2030 Strategy. The goal of the Space Strategy is to have Portugal “be recognized as a worldwide authority in the science and economics of Space-Earth-Climate-Oceans interactions for the benefit of society and economy.” It says that space “must be considered as a common good,” and that “many sectors can profit from space-based solutions, such as agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, urban development, transportation, maritime, shipping, tourism, banking, defense and security, and even the public health sector and epidemic monitoring.”
The objectives for the strategy are reminiscent of those laid out by New Zealand in their own recent strategy. They want to “promote economic growth and the creation of skilled jobs in Portugal by supporting space-related markets,” “foster the generation of satellite data through new space technologies and space-related infrastructures in Portugal,” “contribute to the development of the country and the strengthening of diplomatic relations and international scientific cooperation,” and “ensure the development and evolution of the legal, financial, institutional, [and] cultural/educational internationalization frameworks capable of boosting the development of the Space sector.”
Hugo André Costa, a board member at the agency, laid out more concrete plans during a presentation at the Portugal Air Summit in 2021. He said that the agency wants to “multiply by ten the space sector in Portugal,” including both new private investment and new public funding. He also pointed to some key focuses: earth observation, space connectivity, space debris, and traffic management.
In terms of Earth observation, the key goal for the Agency is the 16-satellite Atlantic Satellite Constellation, which will include one to three Very High Resolution satellites, focused on the Atlantic Ocean. The agency is supporting the development of the constellation, but Costa said at the time that the project should be industry-led, with an eye to commercial applications.
For space connectivity, Costa’s presentation pointed to the “Santa Maria Space Ecosystem.” This includes developing the island as a communications gateway, as well as the landing site for the ESA’s “space rider” reusable uncrewed robotic laboratory. They’re also developing Santa Maria as a launch site, and Costa was quoted as saying that the ESA has “a gap in medium launchers” that Santa Maria could fill.
Santa Maria is already host to an ESA launcher tracker site, and the PSA is already running a “competitive dialogue process” for companies wishing to establish the spaceport, indicating it may become a fully-commercial spaceport like Maritime Launch Canada’s upcoming Spaceport Nova Scotia.
Reflecting on the hazards posed by space debris—again echoing New Zealand’s new policy—Costa told the conference about the many ways that we rely on space-based data, and asked “What does it mean if we destroy our space assets? And we are not very far away from that…”
Avoiding potentially catastrophic collisions will require a mix of both space surveillance and tracking and space traffic management, and Costa said that air traffic management could also be needed to protect air traffic from returning space debris.
Costa also said that the Azores’ geostrategic location could serve as a key asset on these issues, and pointed to the development of a new operations center as a key part of that. He also pointed to Switzerland-based ClearSpace, a company focused on debris removal that’s working with the ESA, reinforcing the international nature of the debris issue.
These are ambitious goals for a 9 million euro budget, though the announcement indicated that the PSA will be able to save unspent funds and add them to the following year’s budget, allowing for a gradual ramping-up of spending. But it shows that the Portuguese government is giving the space agency room to begin work on some of these goals, and to begin developing the public-private partnerships that will help bring their constellation, connectivity, and debris-tracking goals to life.
