Spain launches new space agency with €700 million budget

The news comes as European countries aim to boost their space credentials and prevent themselves from falling even further behind the US, Russia, and China in the space race.

Last week, a panel commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA) released a report warning that Europe is at risk of missing out on the next big tech boom if it doesn't allocate more funds to its space industry. The report calls for a plan to get European astronauts on the lunar surface "within ten years."

Spain's space agency will "guarantee Spain's strategic action in the field of space, both from the point of view of its technological development and the use of space in areas such as security, Earth observation, geolocation, and telecommunications," a statement by Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation reads.

"Space is a priority and strategic area, essential to help and protect our society in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, navigation, the fight against climate change, or the monitoring of phenomena such as drought or fires," the statement continues. 

Spain's space history so far

Spain is one of ESA's founding member states, meaning it has been a member since 1975. But Spain's involvement on the global space stage goes back even further.

In 1966, NASA contracted the Spanish Government to launch meteorological rockets to study wind and temperature variations in the first 100 km of altitude of the atmosphere. As a result, El Arenosillo was founded in the province of Huelva, a facility that some refer to as the country's own version of Cape Canaveral.

NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), meanwhile, which enabled communication with Apollo 11 during the Moon landing in 1969, is comprised of ground facilities in the US, Australia, and Spain.

More recently, two Spaniards, Pablo Álvarez Fernández and Sara García Alonso, were chosen among the ESA's 17 astronaut candidates for 2022. A Spanish rocket firm, PLD Space, is also preparing to launch Europe's first reusable suborbital rocket, Miura 1, early next month from El Arenosillo.