At Andøya in Nordland they fear Norway will lose the space race – NRK

“I am impatient,” says Odd Roger Enoksen, director of the Andøya Space Center.

He noted today that the revised national budget lacked good news for the planned small satellites launch base at Andøya in Vesterålen.

The Enox says it wasn’t surprised, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t think it’s urgent.

“This is a race where starting first will be very important,” says Enoksen.

The battle is about being the first in Europe to send satellites around Earth.

– Scotland leads

According to Enoksen, the number of satellites to be launched will increase enormously in the future.

Satellites can be used for Earth observation, navigation, and communication.

Satellites can, among other things, help predict natural disasters in the past. A more complete and effective ground observation will be important for detecting drought, protecting vegetation and agriculture, as well as investigating what happens to large ocean currents as the climate changes, writes the Andøya spaceport itself.

An increasingly digitized world also needs better communication opportunities to develop new services. Equally important is increasing broadband access globally so that more people have the opportunity to participate in digitization.

But, as I said, Norway is not alone. Similar plans are in the works in Sweden, Scotland and Portugal.

– Who is leading the race?

– The longest, besides us, are Scotland, and they are the biggest competitor. This is where the decision to configure is made, they are in progress, and they are already concluding agreements with customers for their future launch, says Enoksen.

Not in 2020, but maybe 2021?

The Andøya spaceport is important for many reasons. As is well known, the Andøy community was greatly affected when it was decided that the island’s main air station should be closed.

The launch base can provide just over 100 fully operational jobs.

Andøya Spaceport is a subsidiary of Andøya Spacecenter and is 90 percent owned by the state. The Kongsberg Group owns the remaining ten.

What the actors in Andøya need from the state is just over NOK 300 million. In total, the project has a total framework of NOK 1.3 billion.

– It must happen quickly now. It is working well from the Ministry, I must emphasize that. This is a great project that is not just about finance. The state is also drafting a new space law, and the necessary work and good case management is being done, says Enoksen.

– The original objective was to make the first launch in 2020. This will not be relevant, among other things, due to the crown crisis we are in. But we can still make it to 2021 if we make a decision in the next 2-3 months, he continues.

– disappointing and unfortunate

County Council Leader Tomas Norvoll (Ap) says it is disappointing and unfortunate that the government has not found room to prioritize the Andøya spaceport in the revised budget.

– This is one of the most important projects in the northern part of Norway of our time. Storting must now take on the role of policy developer to strengthen the Northern Norway area policy, he tells NRK.

It is the Storting that will adopt the revised national budget. At the same time, the Storting is now processing its own parliamentary report on Norwegian space operations, Norvoll emphasizes.

– We are now working extensively with various committees and all parties to see if we can realize the Andøya spaceport, says Norvoll.

This weekend, E24 wrote that the Defense Minister believes that the Andøya spaceport “in the long term could be a strategically important resource to safeguard the interests of Norwegian defense and security policy and strengthen our contribution to NATO and the cooperation with close allies. “

Andøya has geographic advantages, existing infrastructure and experience that can potentially make a Norwegian launch base competitive against similar projects in other countries, says the county council leader.

– Now I register that the Ministry of Defense is also reporting interest in the Andøya spaceport from countries such as Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. This shows how strategically important it is to realize the Andøya spaceport now.

NRK has sent questions to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry regarding the case.

You wanna fix

Secretary of State Jan Christian Kolstø (V) said they received a revised request from the Andøya Space Center in April to fund the Andøya Space Port.

– The application must be considered, and we must see if the proposed solutions comply with the state aid rule in the EEA Agreement. These are complicated and slow evaluations that it has not been possible to complete with the revised national budget.

Once the results of this evaluation have been received, a decision can be made on the financing of the Andøya Space Center, he continues.

– We cannot say when any financing will come, but we give this matter a high priority. We want to make arrangements for Andøya to be competitive. At the same time, we must be sure that such a launch base will be a good long-term investment.

Reject multiple plans

In early October 2019, it became clear that the business plan that the Andøya Space Center had submitted for evaluation at the Ministry of Industry was not considered profitable, writes Bladet Vesterålen.

In the revised plan, which the ministry had on the table in November, the company requested a combination of government and capital grants.

– The request we received in November described a financial solution that may conflict with state aid regulations. This was announced to the Andøya Space Center in January 2020, business minister Iselin Nybø told Bladet Vesterålen in February this year.

Enox said at the time that a new revised request would arrive in March, and that it was hopeful that the money would enter the revised budget. Did not happen