As the mercury drops to minus 20 Celsius, a research rocket lifts off from one of the world's northernmost space centres, its burner aglow in the twilight of Sweden's snowy Arctic forests.

Hopes are high that rockets like this could carry satellites as early as next year, in what could be the first satellite launch from a spaceport in continental Europe.

At the launch pad, about an hour from the mining town of Kiruna, there's not a person in sight, only the occasional reindeer herd.

The vast deserted forests are the reason the Swedish space centre is located here, at the foot of "Radar Hill", some 200 kilometres (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.

"In this area we have 5,200 square kilometres (2,007 square miles) where no one lives, so we can easily launch a rocket that flies into this area and falls down without anyone getting harmed," Mattias Abrahamsson, head of business development at the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), tells AFP.

Founded by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1966 to study the atmosphere and Northern Lights phenomenon, the Esrange space centre has invested heavily in its facilities in recent years to be able to send satellites into space.

At a huge new hangar big enough to house two 30-meter rockets currently under assembly elsewhere, Philip Pahlsson, head of the "New Esrange" project, pulls up a heavy blue door.

Under the rosy twilight of this early afternoon, construction machines nearby can be seen busily completing work on three new launch pads.

"Satellite launches will start to take place from here next year," Pahlsson says.

"This has been a major development, the biggest step we have taken since the inception of Esrange."

More than 600 suborbital rockets have already been launched from this remote corner of Sweden's far north, including the Suborbital Express 3 whose late November launch AFP witnessed as the temperature stood at -20 degrees Celsius, or minus four degrees Fahrenheit.

While these rockets are capable of reaching space at altitudes of 260 kilometres, they're not able to orbit Earth.

- Booming business -

But with Europe gearing up to send its first satellite into space soon, Esrange is looking forward to joining a select club of space centres that include Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Europe's space hub in South America, Kourou in French Guiana.

Various projects in Europe -- in Portugal's Azores, Norway's Andoya island, Spain's Andalusia and the UK's Shetland Islands among others -- are all vying to launch the first satellite from the European continent.

"We think we are clearly the most advanced," says the SSC, which is aiming to launch at the end of 2023 or early 2024.

The satellite industry is booming, and the Swedish state-owned company is in discussions with several rocket makers and clients who want to put their satellites in orbit.

With a reusable rocket project called Themis, Esrange will also host ESA's trials of rockets able to land back on Earth, like those of SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk.

While the Plesetsk base in northwestern Russia carried out several satellite launches in the post-Cold War period, no other country in Europe has done so.

- Small satellites driving demand -

So why is the continent -- so far from the Equator, which is more suited for satellite launches -- suddenly seeing such a space industry boom?

"Satellites are becoming smaller and cheaper, and instead of launching one big satellite you spread it out over multiple small satellites and that drives the demand," explains Pahlsson.

More objects were launched into space in 2021 than ever before. And more records are set to be broken in the coming years.

Orbiting the North and South Poles is enough for many satellites, making sites like Esrange more attractive.

In addition, having a launch site close to European clients spares them and their satellites long boat journeys to Kourou.

In Sweden, like in the rest of Europe, the rockets being developed are "micro-rockets".

These are around 30 metres long, capable of carrying a payload of several hundred kilos. In the future, SSC is aiming for payloads of more than a tonne.

But working in the harsh Arctic climate "comes with challenges", SSC says.

With temperatures regularly dropping to -20 or -30 degrees Celsius, special attention needs to be paid to the metals used, which become more fragile in the cold.

The war in Ukraine -- where the engines for the European Vega rocket are manufactured -- and the abrupt end to the West's space cooperation with Russia have meanwhile increased interest in having spaceports on the continent.

"Europe needs independent access to space. The horrible situation in Ukraine has changed the space business," notes Pahlsson.

From Shetlands to Azores, Europe's space race takes off
Paris (AFP) Dec 8, 2022 - Projects to develop space centres that can launch satellites into Earth's orbit are sprouting up around Europe, amid the soaring popularity of small rockets and the commercialisation of space.

By the end of this year, Spanish start-up PLD Space expects to launch its Miura-1 mini-rocket from the El Arenosillo site in the southern region of Andalusia.

Satellites will also be launched "in the coming weeks for the first time in the UK", Britain's Innovation Minister George Freeman announced last month, with the first-ever Virgin Orbit rocket to be released from a repurposed Boeing 747 taking off from Cornwall.

While Sweden has for decades been home to the Esrange spaceport near Kiruna in the country's far north, and Norway has had its own space centre on Andoya island, other spaceport projects are popping up on the continent.

The UK has two, in addition to "Spaceport Cornwall", including a base in Sutherland, northern Scotland, where Britain's Orbex plans to run its future launches.

The other is in SaxaVord, in the Shetland Islands, where French group Latitude and US group Astra Space plan to launch their small rockets.

Other projects are underway in Iceland, Portugal's Azores, the Canary Islands and the North Sea, where a German consortium plans to launch small satellites from a ship.

"We're seeing a proliferation of space bases in Europe," said Marie-Anne Clair, the head of the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

"The commercial aspect is real: there is also an abundance of micro-satellites which will require missions from micro-launchers," she told AFP.

For a long time, satellites were primarily used for institutional missions by national space agencies which had their own launch pads.

But the market has now exploded with the emergence of small start-ups, modern technology making both rockets and satellites smaller, and the rapidly growing number of applications for satellites.

- The quest for polar orbit -

Some 18,500 small satellites -- those weighing less than 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) -- are expected to be launched between 2022 and 2031, compared to 4,600 in the previous decade.

That amounts to a tonne of material sent into space each day for the next 10 years, according to specialist consultants Euroconsult.

Launch services are expected to almost quadruple their sales by 2031 to $28.4 billion. Nowadays, most of Europe's spaceport projects are private sector initiatives.

The geographic location of a launching pad is crucial, with sparsely populated areas required in case of problems with the launch.

In addition, launching rockets closer to Europe's production sites avoids long and costly transportation to distant launch sites, which is bound to appeal to customers.

In astronautics, it is only possible to launch north of one's position.

Positioned near the Equator, Kourou in South America "can launch in all orbits" but "to launch satellites only in polar orbit, with northern latitudes like Sweden, Norway or northern Scotland, you're well positioned", explained Marie-Anne Clair.

A large number of projects involving small satellites are designed to observe Earth, which requires a polar orbit: The satellite is launched toward the North Pole, then orbits between the two poles, providing a full sweep of the planet.

It remains to be seen whether the numerous mini-launcher and spaceport projects will be profitable.

"There are a lot of projects, some will succeed, others won't," Clair said.

The Kourou base, where the Ariane rockets are launched, is also vying for its share of the European market.

The French space agency CNES has invested 50 million euros ($52 million) to refurbish the old Diamant-1 launch pad in Kourou to be able to accommodate mini- and micro-rockets.

Chris Kemp, the head of the US launch services company Astra Space, welcomed the move.

"The more spaceports available, the more chances to have access to space we get."

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