Two small spaceports in the far north of Sweden and Norway are at the center of European hopes of establishing the continent's own satellite launch facilities to decrease reliance on support from the United States.
In 2024, the US sent hardware into space on 154 launches, compared to just three by Europe, and currently the only launch facility available to Europe is in French Guiana, in South America.
Against a backdrop of the America First policy of the current White House administration, and uncertainty over Elon Musk's Space X program, European authorities are trying to come up with appropriate alternatives of their own.
"We've lost (in) competition to, let's say, Elon Musk ... and definitely we need to have our (own) autonomous launching possibilities," Andrius Kubilius, European commissioner for defense and space, told Reuters. "That's why the development of launching possibilities on the European continent, both in Sweden and Norway, is very important."
Stefan Gustafsson, former chief strategist at the state-owned Swedish Space Corporation, or SSC, added: "Europe lacks defense space infrastructure to a dangerous degree. So, we really need to put efforts there, and that is done now. I only hope that they will do it a little bit in a new way, so that we are not stuck into long, huge institutional processes once again."
Sites at Esrange, in northern Sweden, and on the island of Andoya in the north of Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, but which, like Sweden, is a member of the NATO military alliance, have emerged as leading candidates.
