Happy birthday, Portugal Space!

Hello Readers!

The Portuguese Space Agency (Portugal Space or, just, PT Space) is one of the most recent space agency created in the World. 

Responding quickly to Portuguese demands in the space sector, in its three years of existence, completed on March, 18, PT Space sought to ensure that space can, and contributes, to the economic growth of the Portuguese population.

Below we have an article (Eng.) published by Protugal Space on its website alluding to this milestone.

Congratulations PT Space!

Brazilian Space

Happy birthday, Portugal Space! 

For the last three years we remained faithful to the path we had set from the beginning: making sure that Space can, and does, contribute to the Portuguese population's economic growth and social well-being

PT Space Website

March, 28

The Portuguese Space Agency has completed its first three years of existence. These were naturally challenging years, with the typical teething troubles, but in which we remained faithful to the path we had set from the beginning: making sure that Space can, and does, contribute to the Portuguese population’s economic growth and social well-being.

Always conscious of how the world is moving, we sought to adapt the Portuguese strategy for Space, improving its content and translating it into programmatic challenges. As a result, we have strengthened our position at the European Space Agency (ESA) by doubling our contribution and accompanying the definitions of Agenda 2025. The adoption of the Matosinhos Manifesto is an example of Portugal’s vital role in the organisation.

The Agency also worked to amplify our industrial and scientific relations at the Southern European Observatory and worked to benefit from the European Space Programme, which brings tremendous opportunities to the national ecosystem. As an example of our work, Portugal was one of the five founding members of the SKA Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope.

The European Union’s Space programme and ESA’s Agenda 2025 represent Europe’s commitment to this sector and the crucial contribution of Space for a more resilient, more autonomous, and greener Europe. There are more and more challenges we must answer, and Space presents itself as one dimension of those responses. Space offers solutions for various spheres of our lives, and space technologies contribute to finding the keys to solving concrete problems, such as the understanding and monitoring of our territory, the management of water resources, fire prevention and the control of coastal areas, among others.

It has been my great honour to lead the destiny of the Portuguese Space Agency for the last year and a half, grasping the legacy of Manuel Heitor, the architect of the national space agency, and Chiara Manfletti, its first president, and contributing to boosting the Portuguese Space Ecosystem.

As I initially wrote, these last three years were challenging and forced us to adapt to a new world quickly. Less than a year after the creation of the Agency and the effective entry of the first staff members, a pandemic forced us to take on a remote regime, taking the first steps in a new structure in a situation that we were all unaware. Nevertheless, we can say that we have met the challenge we were given with distinction. We have intensified the connections with the industry, the universities, and research centres, always seeking to amplify their visibility in Portugal and worldwide.

With this second edition of the Portuguese Space Agency Newsletter, we want to celebrate the contributions of those who paved the way before Portugal became an ESA State Member. We want to honour their legacy and show that Portugal has been working towards innovation in the Space sector for decades. We also want to show that the hard work continues and that the Portuguese Space Sector can only evolve and continuously thrive if we work together.

Proof of that is the new contracts signed by the Portuguese companies that will develop software for the SKA Observatory, but also the holding of the 1st Copernicus National Conference, a crucial stepstone to the national ecosystem, or the promotion of the national competition Zero-G Portugal – Astronaut for a Day, which will take 30 adolescents in a parabolic flight. It is also for them that we work: they will be the future of the Portuguese Space sector.

A special acknowledgement for these years of generous and fantastic work of the Portugal Space team and our associates and institutional partners, such as ANACOM, AED and ESA.