The four pillars of Portugal's spatial development that Spain lacks

The tenacity and guidance of a charismatic leader has allowed Portugal to set an example of how a modest nation can carve out a niche for itself on the hotly contested global space scene. 

While Spain is still, in the spring of 2022, without an organisation responsible for planning, coordinating and directing national space policy and strategy and, just as importantly, without a person to lead the national space project as a whole, the Portuguese Space Agency has just completed its third year of life.

Its foundation was agreed at the Council of Ministers of 7 March 2019 chaired by Prime Minister Antonio Costa, and officially created shortly after, on the 18th of the same month. Three years later, it is already taking important steps on the international stage under the leadership of its new head, Ricardo Conde, a prestigious professional in the sector, selected by an international commission from among numerous national and foreign candidates.

A modest organisation in keeping with the country's capabilities, the Portuguese agency is directing Portuguese national interests with the aim of boosting and multiplying by 10 times during the current decade the approximately half a hundred million euros that the Portuguese space industry has an annual turnover of around half a hundred million euros. The goal is to reach a turnover of around 500 million euros by 2030.

The person who saw the need to set up the Portuguese Space Agency and has done everything possible to bring it to life is not an enlightened savant. Nor is he a nerd. He is someone who knows where the global economy is heading and does not want his country to miss the boat. He is a world figure in fluid mechanics and combustion, a professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa, Portugal's most prestigious polytechnic university.

His name is Manuel Heitor and he took office as Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education at the end of November 2015, in the first cabinet of socialist leader Antonio Costa. Since then and until he stepped down a week ago, he has shown that he has been willing and able to be the architect of the space ecosystem that our dear neighbour on the Iberian peninsula has put in place.

The legacy that Heitor has left to his successor, Elvira Fortunato, a prestigious researcher in the field of nano-materials, candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics and former Secretary of State for Science, is far from being comparable to that received by the current Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant. Her predecessor, the astronaut Pedro Duque, who took on his role for 3 years -from June 2018 to July 2021-, told her a slight increase in Spain's investment in the European Space Agency (ESA) and little more.

It is true that the legislative path to establish the Spanish Space Agency is underway. But it is not due to Pedro Duque, who repeatedly rejected its desirability until, in May 2021, the then director of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government, Iván Redondo, anticipated in Congress its creation, which is now contemplated in the new Science Law pending approval.

Manuel Heitor, on the other hand, deployed his skills as a "manager, leader and tireless worker" - qualities attributed to him by those who know him well - and has built an entire ecosystem to position his nation on the global space stage. That is why the efforts of Portugal and its former minister are recognised in all international space forums, to which he is invited as an example to follow. But the Portuguese Space Agency is only the fourth pillar of a structure that aims to "attract European business and funding", as well as "create thousands of highly skilled jobs".

The first link in the value chain conceived by Heitor to facilitate "greater Portuguese participation in ESA and European Union programmes" was the National Space Strategy 2030, which was launched in March 2018. In September of the same year, it promoted the Azores International Satellite Launch Programme, which it consolidated a year later with the intention of setting up and operating a space launch base on the island of Santa Maria in the Atlantic archipelago. It has had setbacks that are delaying its start-up. 

In January 2019 it managed to publish the decree-law regulating the regime for access to and the exercise of space activities, which ended in mid-March with the creation of the aforementioned Space Agency, responsible for implementing the 2030 Strategy. With the four key pillars in place, and as a reinforcement of the space aces' poker, Heitor promoted the creation of Geosat, the first private Portuguese operator of observation satellites. The company will be set up at the beginning of 2021, following a model similar to that promoted by the Spanish government when it promoted the founding of the operators Hispasat (1989) and Hisdesat (2001).

Geosat's main shareholders are Omnidea (55%), the Centre for Engineering and Product Development or CEiiA (35%) and the AIR Center (10%), Portuguese public-private companies and institutions linked to the aerospace sector. The new operator is not starting from scratch. It took advantage of an opportunity offered by the market and in April 2021 acquired from the Canadian operator Urthecast the infrastructure and satellites Deimos 1 - in orbit since July 2009 - and Deimos 2 - in space since June 2014 - an entity that was in insolvency proceedings. Urthecast had bought the company Deimos Imaging with both satellites from its parent company, the Spanish company Elecnor Deimos Space, in June 2015. 

Geosat is not the end of Manuel Heitor's efforts to strengthen Lisbon's position in the space industry and economy. He was the driving force behind the decision by the government of Antonio Costa and the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez, in view of Portugal's growing strength in the space sector, to combine their capabilities in the so-called Atlantic Constellation. The initiative is included in the new Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed between Spain and Portugal at the 32nd Spanish-Portuguese summit on 28 October. 

It consists of defining, developing, manufacturing and launching into space a cooperation programme to deploy and operate a constellation of 16 small optical Earth observation satellites with a resolution of less than 5 metres, also equipped with other sensors. Weighing between 20 and 30 kilos and located at an altitude of less than 700 kilometres, they are aimed at sustainability, monitoring oceanic and coastal biodiversity, trying to prevent and tackle forest fires, as well as dealing with the consequences of natural disasters.

Portugal has included the initiative in its Recovery Plan and Spain in the Aerospace PERTE approved by the Council of Ministers on 22 March. Although the potential and turnover of the Spanish space industry is about twenty times higher than that of Portugal, both countries will share the development of capabilities and technologies, with a view to starting to place satellites in orbit by 2025. 

The contrast between the interest in space matters between the governments of Lisbon and Madrid has evolved in favour of our peninsular neighbour. Spain was one of the 10 nations that signed ESA's founding act on 30 May 1975. Portugal joined the European Agency on 15 December 1999 and became the 15th member state. Spain launched its first satellite into space -INTASAT- in November 1974. Portugal did not put its first satellite - PoSat-1 - into orbit until September 1993. But now, in just 5 years, Portugal has managed to establish a complete space ecosystem that Spain still lacks. Congratulations Portugal!