Click here and find photos of some of the exhibitors at SpaceOps 2012.
SpaceOps. Wednesday 13th of June. Maybe you can see yourself in some of the photos. Go to People at SpaceOps 2012 Monday or Wednesday. Monday Wednesday
International space conference in Stockholm 11-15th of June.
(2012-06-11) The King of Sweden opened the conference. You can read about the space conference on the page SpaceOps 2012.
The Swedish Space Corporation may be successful in USA. In the magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology, senior editor Frank Morring writes 7th of May about foreign space companies in USA. Here you can read about the The Swedish Space Corporation. If you want to read about example number two, the new rocket Liberty built by ATK and Astrium, you can go to aviationweek.com. (2012, May 19th) Cubesats are the ultimate in miniature spacecraft, tiny orbiters that can be launched by the dozen as piggyback payloads at prices that bring them within reach of undergraduate engineering classes and even high schools. But when they run out of power, they are really just space debris. Now NASA is looking for ways to bring them back into the atmosphere before they smash into more valuable spacecraft. The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) believes it has an answer, and it is following a trend in trying to globalize its technology by selling it in USA which is the biggest space market in the world. As the name suggests, SSC is one of the crown jewels in Sweden´s space-technology industry. Based in a Stockholm suburb, the company and its subsidiaries have built world-class satellites for the European Space Agency and developed niche technologies that could play right into NASA:s search. SSC´s NanoSpace unit has developed miniaturized spacecraft thrusters using Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) fabrication technology. The tiny thruster systems have been partially validated in space, on the Prisma satellites that also proved out the non-hypergolic green propellant developed by another SSC subsidiary. They would seem to be a logical line of pursuit for NASA, which posted a request for information on its procurement website April 23 on ways to hold the risk of collisions between spent cubesats and other orbiting objects to less than 1 in 1.000. “NanoSpace is indeed interested but needs to partner with a U.S. company or institution to be able to respond,” says SSC Executive Anne Ytterskog. The Swedish company is a subcontractor on NASA`s call for green alternatives to hydrazine and other toxic hypergolic propellants for spacecraft. SSC`s Ecological Advanced Propulsion Systems (Ecaps) division has partnered with a U.S. prime to propose the ammonium dinitramide-based propellant LMP-103S that it validated in tests on the Prisma mission. “There are a lot of barriers that we need to overcome,” Stefan Gardefjord, SSC´s new president and CEO, told Aviation Week at the recent National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Beyond heritage and financial barriers, the Ecaps unit will also have to deal with U.S. federal regulations on doing business with foreign space companies. NASA stipulates that while it welcomes foreign technology, it will not fund off-shore research and will select non-U.S. companies only if a “no-exchange-of-funds” agreement can be reached. Partnering with U.S. companies is a way around that prohibition, and it is followed by overseas companies trying to market space technologies in the U.S. government marketplace. Read more about the cooperation between Ecaps and an american company.
To put it simple you could say that the Swedish Space Industry consists of three big companies and many small. (2012-04-29) The three big companies. Volvo builds trucks, but also owns a company in the aviation business: Volvo Aero. Volvo Aero has for many years constructed parts for the engine used in Ariane. Volvo is now looking for a buyer of Volvo Aero. Volvo is a big company with only a fraction of its production in the space business. RUAG Space used to be part of the aviation and military business at Saab. A few years ago the space company was sold to RUAG, which is owned by the government of Austria. RUAG Space spezialises in computers, antennas and separators. SSC, short for Swedish Space Corporation, is owned by the Swedish government. It has a great advantage in owning a spaceport, Esrange, in the north of Sweden. There it is launching sounding rockets and huge balloons, and receiving signals from satellites. For many years, until last year, SSC was building satellites, but that part of the company was sold to OHB of Germany. Sweden is too small? It seems like Sweden is too small. The big space activities are sold abroad. That can be seen also when we look at two other successful companies. The telecom-company SES Sirius is only partly Swedish and the satellite-telephone company SweDish was sold to USA. The small companies. But there are many small space companies in Sweden and the number is streadily growing. These are some of the middle size companies: Carmenta, Omnisys, Gaisler, Jirotex, Sweco and Aacmicrotec. And these are small: A.C.R. Electronic, Spacemetric, Forsway, C2SAT, Polymer, Telewide, YoYo, Umbilical. The governmental space programme is administrated by The Swedish National Space Board.
SpaceOps 2012: Big space conference in Stockholm. The King of Sweden participates in opening ceremony. The swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, the world-famous wild-life photographer Mattias Klum and Swedish space-pioneer Sven Grahn will deliver speeches. Representatives from all major space agencys in the world will attend. (April 5th 2012) The biggest international space conference ever held in Sweden kicks off June 11th this year and will last for five days. The organization SpaceOps has organized this conference every other year in different parts of the world since the early 90's. SpaceOps brings together the world's major players in the field "operation of spacecrafts." The location of the event is the Conference Center Waterfront in Stockholm. Chairman of the Swedish Organizing Committee is Annika Benson at Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). Arielspace met her and talked about the conference. Between 11th and 15th of June, representatives of a number of space agencies, space companies, universities and military organizations gather to communicate with each other and listen to lectures on space activities. The conference is organized by SSC (former Rymdbolaget) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The initiative comes from The International Committee on Technical Interchange for Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, abbreviated SpaceOps. The purpose of the conference is to discuss the operation of different systems (ie, not the production of spacecraft). In previous years the focus has been on the operation of satellites, but new this year is that they also will be talking about rockets and research balloons. Each morning the delegates will be able to participate in a large plenary session. The rest of the time, 8 parallel series of lectures will be held. They will cover the following themes: Mission Execution Data and Communications System Facilities Mission Design and Mission Management Training and Knowledge Transfer Cross Support, Interoperability and Standards Commercial Space Operations Launcher, Rockets and Balloon Operations University Space Operations One of these topics interests me more than the others: Commercial Space Operations. Details of this series of lectures has not been published yet but they will cover: Spacecraft operations Ground operations Private public partnerships Commercial orbital transportation services Commercial crew development Space tourism Annika Benson says that international interest in the conference has been great. There will be 600 participants and 80% of exhibition space is already taken. The organizers have a number of sponsors but they hope to get more sponsors interested. A sponsor can help fund a specific event, such as a lunch, and then have an opportunity to communicate what they do to this important and large group of people in the space industry. The task of organizing this year's conference went to SSC and The German Aerospace Center. Annika Benson says that they received the go-ahead as early as 2009 to organize the 2012 conference. SSC booked the newly built Stockholm Waterfront before the house was completed! She explained to me how the organizing committee walked around the building site and looked around, with helmets on! It is a major task to organize such a large conference, even if the task were divided between SSC, The German Aerospace Center and the eventcompany Congrex. Annika Benson will be like a commander in chief throughout the conference, ready to tackle any unexpected problems! About 500 lectures were received for the conference and 300 of them have been selected to be in SpaceOps 2012. There will be 50 poster exhibitors and 20 so-called e-poster exhibitors.
Participants can take part in some social events in the evenings, such as a "gala dinner" at the Vasa Museum June 14. The weekend after the conference, participants who are interested can travel to Kiruna in northern Sweden, get a guided tour of Esrange, visit a Same village and LKAB's mine and get information about the Ice Hotel. Fee for participation in the conference was 5500 SEK for those who signed up before March 15th and is 7000 SEK until June 1. If you just want to drop in on SpaceOps it costs 8000 SEK. The trip to Kiruna cost 5900 SEK. Read more at the web-site of the conferense: SpaceOps 2012
I saw Sputnik when I was 4 years old. (2012-03-23) This is my memories of Sputnik, the little football-sized satellite with antennas sticking out that the Soviet Union sent out into space in 1957. Sputnik launched the space era. And I saw Sputnik ... or did I? One never gets to keep believing in their illusions. But I got to keep believing in this illusion for decades. This is a very personal story about Sputnik. I was four years old and my dad told me that I could stay up later than usual one night because we were going out to watch a Sputnik. I didn’t know what a Sputnik was and it made me a little nervous. When it got dark, and my little sister was sleeping my father, mother and I went outside our house. We lived in an apartment block and outside our house stood many adults looking towards the sky. It was a starry night. It was cold. We stood there waited. And waited. My dad got the idea that we would go around the house and stand on the sidewalk in order to scout the other way. It all felt more and more eerie. I began to feel a real fear of the Sputnik that was suppose to show up in the sky. What was a Sputnik? What would happen? Finally I was so scared that I wanted to go inside. "Go inside then, we will come in soon," said my mother. I went back around the house. But before I got into the house, someone called out to me, "Ariel, look up! There is Sputniken!" I looked up at the starry sky. There, there! A small bright dot moving across the sky. It looked like one of the stars moved. The bright dot traveled quickly across the night sky and then it was gone. A few years later I found out that the year had been 1957 and that Sputnik was a Russian satellite, in fact, the world's first satellite. I was a part of the space era from the very beginning. But it was all an illusion. In 2002, I interviewed former information manager Sven Grahn at the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). According to him, Sputnik was too small for me to see from earth. What we saw outside our house in 1957 was the last rocket stage of the launch. The rocket stage also went into orbit and was large enough to be able to reflect the sun and become visible from earth. Somehow it sounds better to say that I saw the first satellite than to say that I saw the last rocket stage from the first satellite launch.
Space Forum in Kiruna, November 21 – November 23 Space Forum Sweden is an organization with the purpose to advocate increase of the Swedish space activity. Every other year a conference called Space Forum is arranged. (2011) Kiruna, November 21 I arrived in Kiruna at 5:00 pm on November 21 to attend the conference Space Forum 2011 which would go on for three days and was held at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. It was very dark when I arrived since Kiruna is situated in northern Sweden where the sun only appears a few hours a day, and sometimes not at all, in the winter. However, there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground which is rare in Kiruna in November. The main topic of conversation on the first day of the conference and in the space industry this day was that Volvo announced that it would sell its subsidiary company Volvo Aero, which is partly involved in space activity. In the press release from the Volvo Group it is said: "As a step in further streamlining the Volvo Group towards heavy commercial vehicles, AB Volvo has initiated a process aimed at divesting Volvo Aero." Kiruna, November 22 At the Swedish Institute of Space Physics the second day of Space Forum 2011, November 22, began with Mr. Martin Kores from the company Omnisys speaking about the document “The Space Agenda”. The document will be used to advocate increased space activities in Sweden. Many of the largest space companies and also certain interest groups within the business community are endorsing The Space Agenda (In Swedish: Rymdagendan). Airplanes and the weather. Bengt Nilsson from the company AVTECH talked about how aircrafts navigates. There are several different systems in every airplane, but GPS is not yet sufficiently advanced so that it can constitute the main system. GPS is only a complementary. Maria Nilsson from the Swedish governmental space agency (Swedish National Space Board) spoke about remote sensing and revealed fascinating satellite photographs of the Earth’s surface. Anki Thoss from The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) talked about how satellite imagery clearly shows the great climatic changes now talking place because of human impact on the atmosphere. SMHI is the largest users of satellite imagery in Sweden, followed by The Swedish Forest Agency, The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and so on. Foreign Policy and military satellites. This was followed by two lectures on foreign policy/military information. There are new realities of military information and security regarding satellites now with the cold war in our past. Here is a link to pictures from the conference. Innovations and galaxies. After lunch, representatives from Volvo Aero, ÅAC MicroTec and RUAG Space spoke about the innovations in the space sector that these companies have come up with. Then followed a series of lectures on general space knowledge, in which my favorite was the astronomer Carina Persson from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. Among other things she talked about the overwhelming feeling one gets from seeing pictures of nebulae and galaxies, which leads us to ponder the question; how is it possible that anything exists at all? Teaching about space The last two lectures on the second day brought us back down to earth. Anna Rathsman from SSC, representatives from the Luleå University of Technology, and the upper secondary school that specializes in space told us about the space activities in Kiruna. We also received information about a new network to generate interest among scientists to enhance Swedish participation in the exploration of planets, moons, meteors, etc. The network is called Planetary Exploration Center. Spaceport Sweden, Mojave och Dryden. The most spectacular lectures had been saved for last. It was three lectures in english namned Development of the Commercial human spaceflight industry. Karin Nilsdotter, CEO of Spaceport Sweden told us news from the establishment of commercial space activities in Kiruna. The main aim is to pursue space tourism with Virgin Galactic but there are also many other ideas for different activities complementing space tourism or related activities. Stuart Witt, head of Mojave Air & Space Port in Southern California. He is a former military test pilot, but have knowledge and experience from many other areas. He showed a film from the facility and then spoke enthusiastically about privately founded space flight. There is an energetic pioneer spirit at the Mojave Port with many companies that are experimenting with new spaceship constructions. Spaceship One flew from there. The last speaker of the day, on the second day of Space Forum 2011 was a guest from NASA. David McBride is the director of one of NASA’s ten science centers, The Dryden Flight Research Center, located at the famous Edward Air Force Base. It can be seen as a governmental equivalent of the Mojave Base, where experiments are executed with new aircraft types. One could argue that the history of manned space travel began at the Edward Base where they conducted experiments with rocket planes in the 50’s. It was planes that were practically rockets! It did not go well. NASA focused instead on the launchers and space craft’s such as the Mercury capsule that John Glenn flew with. Kiruna, November 23 We want more space. On the third and last day we discussed the document The Space Agenda and proposed activities that would communicate to the politicians and the public how important it is that Sweden increases its space activities. Greater support from politicians in budgets and decisions and a more positive view of space activities among the public is desired. In the afternoon of November 23 I took the plane back home to Stockholm after a very interesting Space Forum and looking forward to the next one in 2013.
Volvo Aero, manufacturer of aerospace components, among them space propulsion sub-systems, is up for sale. "As a step in further streamlining the Volvo Group towards heavy commercial vehicles, AB Volvo has initiated a process aimed at divesting Volvo Aero." (Press release from Volvo Group. November 21, 2011) “One of the prerequisites for a transaction being implemented is that a divestment could enable Volvo Aero to enter into a structure that would enhance the company’s opportunities for further development in its sector,” says Volvo CEO Olof Persson. “Another requirement is that we are paid a reasonable price. We are currently conducting talks with a number of potential buyers, but these are still at an early stage and no definite decisions have been made. Volvo Aero is today a leading manufacturer of aerospace components and its products are found in more than 90% of the world’s large civil aircraft. Since streamlining towards commercial vehicles was initiated by the Volvo Group at the end of the 1990s, in conjunction with the divestment of Volvo Car Corporation, the Group has expanded to become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of heavy duty trucks, buses, construction equipment, industrial and marine engines and heavy duty diesel engines.
NASA, Sweden Partner on Small Spacecraft Technology Development. NASA and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) are collaborating to develop powerful low-cost satellites for advanced space missions. (From the website of Microtec. 4th of September 2011) Miniaturization is a recent trend in space exploration, as smaller and smaller spacecraft demonstrate that they can do things that once required enormous and expensive spacecraft. NASA is interested in determining the feasibility of small spacecraft doing the work of large ones, either by themselves or in spacecraft constellations. The partnership harnesses the experience of AAC Microtec, a miniaturized multifunctional electronics systems developer, Uppsala, Sweden, in designing and building miniature Space Plug-and-Play Avionics compatible spacecraft buses and NASA's Ames Research Center's, Moffett Field, Calif., expertise in advanced scientific applications. The Swedish National Space Board is funding AAC Microtec´s development of a miniature Space Plug-and-Play Avionics (SPA) compatible platform, including interfaces, onboard computers, and power subsystems. The platform will be tested at Ames in June 2012. The Swedish platform is being developed jointly with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space Vehicle Directorate, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, as part of an international effort to provide operational responsiveness. The United States and Sweden have been collaborating in space for decades; early cooperation involved studies of the sun's effects on Earth's magnetic field; as well as sounding rocket and high altitude balloon experiments. This collaboration holds the promise of expanding what the two countries may accomplish together in space. For more information about NASA Ames, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ames/ For more information about the Swedish National Space Board, visit: http://www.snsb.se/ For further information: Mats Magnell, CEO ÅAC Microtec AB Phone: +46 707 519 234 Johan Bäckström, Sales Executive ÅAC Microtec AB Phone: +46 70 673 6755 About the company: ÅAC Microtec develops, manufactures and markets miniaturized and robust multifunctional electronics systems. By combining the best suitable packaging techniques ÅAC offer solutions based on state-of-the art microelectronics and MEMS technology, and services for optimal life cycle performance. ÅAC Microtec was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from Uppsala University’s Ångström Laboratory.
"Green" propulsion from Sweden.
More than a year of in-space testing has demonstrated a non-toxic "green" thruster technology developed in Sweden is spaceworthy, with better head-to-head performance than hydrazine. (Aviation Week & Space Technology. 15th of August 2011) The system, developed by Ecaps, subsidiary of Swedish Space Corporation, has demonstrated performance in steady-state, single-pulse and pulse-mode firings on the Mango satellite - part of the two-satellite Prisma technology-development mission - that is 8 % better on average than the monopropellant hydrazine system on the same spacecraft, according to a paper presented in August 2011 at the Conference on the Small Satellites in Logan, Utah. The propellant is a mix of ammonium dinitramide, water, methanol and ammonia.
OHB Buys SSC’s Space Systems Division Fast-growing satellite and rocket hardware manufacturer OHB of Germany, which already has operations in Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg, has established a foothold in Sweden with the purchase of the Space Systems division of SSC, officials with the companies said. (Space News. 24 June 2011) The transaction, described as an asset deal in which OHB assumes the risks of the Space Systems division’s future performance, was concluded for a symbolic price of 1 Swedish krona, or about 15 U.S. cents, according to two officials. The Space Systems division has reported revenue of about 10 million euros ($14 million) per year in recent years and counts 53 employees who will remain where they are and will be organized under the name of OHB Sweden, OHB Chief Executive Marco R. Fuchs said June 23. In an interview, Fuchs said OHB hopes to take advantage of any increase in Swedish government space spending in the coming years. Sweden’s space budget is not increasing now, and SSC — 100 percent government-owned but operated as a profit-making enterprise — had been trying to sell the Space Systems division for about a year. The Space Systems division includes SSC’s work as a subcontractor on the OHB-led Small-Geo satellite platform, which is being financed by the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA). Fuchs said OHB wanted to consolidate the Small-Geo contracting team and that a purchase of the Swedish team by a larger company might have meant relocating it or shutting it down. In a June 20 statement, OHB said SSC has “an essential share in the development and construction of the [Small-Geo] platform, which is of material importance to the OHB Group.” In a transaction that had similar motivations, OHB recently purchased the Belgian operations of Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy when the Franco-Italian manufacturer decided that the Belgian operation was too small to be retained on its own. Under ESA’s geographic-return rules, each nation contributing to an ESA program is promised that most of its contribution will return in the form of contracts to its national industry. The new OHB Sweden thus stands to gain with any increase in Swedish space spending. SSC Chief Executive Lars Persson said June 22 that SSC is glad the transfer of ownership was done with a company that already works with the Space Systems division. “It is really a good fit and it will be good for OHB to open operations in a new country,” Persson said in an interview. “This is very much the right step for the people in the division, and for the industry. The division is going into a bigger company with a full order book.” Persson confirmed that SSC had been trying to sell the division for a year and had reviewed other possible transactions that offered less in the way of growth for the division. In addition to its work on the Small-Geo satellite platform, the new OHB Sweden manages the Swedish Prisma two-satellite formation-flying system, which includes an experimental satellite fuel that SSC believes one day should replace hydrazine. The German space agency, DLR, has recently leased the Prisma system from SSC to test its capabilities and give Germany a better idea for future formation-flying projects. “This is a buildup of expertise that has occurred over more than 20 years,” Persson said of the division. He said OHB has made no commitment to retain the staff in Sweden, and he declined to comment on whether the transaction’s terms included a cash investment by SSC to sweeten the offer.