All under one sky

On April 2, the Falcon 9 rocket was launched by Space X from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Unlike the rocket launches of the 1960s, few people even registered the event and even fewer knew that Poland was involved in manufacturing its compo- nents. Poland’s space exploits are not something you read about every day. But just as space is vast, so is the potential for development, and Poland, among other European countries, is ready to take advantage of that By Beata Socha You wouldn’t readily associate the space industry with Poland. Automotive, heavy machinery, electronics, even aviation – sure, but space technologies have long been thought to be out of Poland’s reach. That may no longer be the case, though. The Polish Space Agency was established as a national body closely cooperating with the European Space Agency. As a member of the ESA, Poland pays a contribution fee, and in return receives a lot of support, both financial and as knowledge transfer from the European agency. Space 4.0 The ESA is not an EU agency, as some may think, but it does work together with the European Commission in many ways. It was the ESA that coined the term Space 4.0, a stage in the global space industry development that we are presumably living in right now. What the term signifies is, unsurprisingly, that there have already been three previous stages in space exploration history and now another phase is starting. Space 1.0 refers to the studying of astronomical objects, going back as far as the first civilizations and the ancient study of astronomy, later aided by the construction of telescopes. Space 2.0 signifies the 1950s-1980s space race between the US and the USSR that resulted in the first man landing on the Moon. The space race played a big role in ending the Cold War, both through public perception and sentiment as well as through purely economic factors: it was an enormous financial cash drain and the US was clearly better equipped to handle that burden than a socialist economy. Once the Cold War ended, the space race slowed down significantly. Instead, a new initiative of joint international space missions was born which led to the construction of the International Space Station, whose first module was launched into orbit in 1998. This stage has been dubbed Space 3.0 and precedes the era of space exploration that we are living in now. Space 4.0 stands for global involvement in space exploration, with access to space becoming cheaper, easier and increasingly egalitarian. It is no longer the domain of a few privileged countries, but a level playing field, where even those new to the game, like Poland, can find a place at the table. A group effort And there are very good reasons why they should get in on the game. “In 2014, when Elżbieta Bieńkowska was appointed as a European commissioner, it was said that every €1 invested in space would bring €8 in return. Now we are talking about €15 for every €1 put in,” said Tomasz Husak, Head of Cabinet of the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, during the 2017 EFNI conference in Sopot. The European Union prepared its own space strategy that involves all EU countries willing to participate and is more ambitious than any national program could be individually. “No European country could have a proper space policy. Yes, Germany and France have their individual undertakings, but a proper space policy can only be achieved for the EU as a whole,” stated Husak and added that out of all EU policies, the space program enjoys the most support from individual EU countries. One could ask, how the EU, or any European country for that matter, could become a real player in an industry that took the US and Russia decades to develop and which took China billions of dollars to acquire the know-how and improve it – as the Asian giant tends to do with all technologies it comes across. It appears that the EU has its own strategy on how to catch up in the space race. “We are in no way lagging behind. In fact, in some areas we are even more innovative and forward-looking (e.g. in the next 20-year timeframe) than the US, Russia or China,” Husak said. Galileo, Copernicus and other endeavors The EU’s space strategy involves three large-scale programs: Galileo, Copernicus and EGNOS. Galileo is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) that is set to be fully operational in 2020, with 30 satellites orbiting Earth (currently we are 60 percent through their deployment). The first data services based on Galileo were launched in 2016. “At the moment, the time it takes to locate a person lost at sea or in the mountains is two hours. With the use of Galileo, it will be cut down to 10 minutes. The system will also be capable of notifying the person in need of rescue that help is on its way, which in many instances can be of crucial importance,” explained Marta Krywanis-Brzostowska, Market Innovation Officer, European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA). The Galileo navigation system can also be tremendously useful in cities, where the standard GPS signal often bounces off tall buildings and gets distorted. This can become very handy when autonomous cars driving in our streets become a reality. It is also extremely accurate in time measurement (up to 30 nanoseconds), which is important for securing financial transactions. Another service it offers is the Public Regulated Service (PRS), which is an encrypted signal that cannot be jammed, used by the police, fire department and other public authorities. Smartphone producers are already outfitting their new models with chipsets integrated with Galileo, like the new iPhone models (iPhone 8 and iPhone X), as well latest roll-outs by Samsung, Sony, Huawei and other major players. Apart from being newer and more precise, one thing that sets the European system apart from other GNSSs is that unlike the American GPS, the Russian GLONASS, and the Chinese Beidou, Galileo is entirely civilian. “While there has been widespread civilian use of these military systems, you can imagine that in case of a conflict, it is rather easy to switch these services off,” remarked Krywanis-Brzostowska. The second European initiative is called Copernicus and it is a constellation of six satellites with the capability to take the most accurate photos of the planet’s surface. These pictures are used by search and rescue teams, like during hurricanes Harvey and Irma last year, or the earthquake in Nepal. They tell rescue teams where there are groups of people that need help. The satellites also collect huge amounts of data, e.g. on the temperature of the oceans, CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which has a multitude of uses, e.g. in agriculture and weather forecasting. The third system – EGNOS (The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) is used by airports and ensures that there can be no gaps in airplane tracking. Polish airports are already among those using it, further increasing air traffic safety. There is another, fourth system, in the works – the so-called GovSatCom. It’s still in the early stages of development, and its goal is to provide secure, hack-proof communication on a European scale. For instance, if a drone was sent to track a terrorist moving from France to, say, Poland, it would currently drop at the French-German border, as there is no direct communication between the systems that individual countries use. Upstream and downstream As one can imagine, it takes immense capabilities to store,