Estonian space-related support project

Estonian space-related support project

“Space related awareness for entrepreneurial and R&D activities”

The European Union sees an essential source for the incurrence of the following economic growth in the downstream applications of space technology. The awareness of the applications and new opportunities of this sector needs to be increased also in Estonia. In addition Estonia plans to become an active member of the ESA. ESA membership is a key for Estonia to enter into the international space industry. As a strategy to build up its profile and capability in the area of space, a framework cooperation agreement with ESA was signed on the 20th June 2007. For the purpose of fulfilment of this framework cooperation agreement between Estonia and ESA, numerous activities have been initiated and carried out upon the order and coordination of Estonian National Space Office Enterprise Estonia since 2008.

Since space-related activities have started in Estonia, Invent Baltics has established itself as a key service provider regarding all kind of space related support activities. We have been facilitating the process of Estonian European Space Agency (ESA) membership and more active participation of Estonian organization in FP7 “Space” thematic priority. Invent Baltics was subcontracted (Public procurement “Space related awareness for entrepreneurial and R&D activities” Timeframe: April – July 2008) by Enterprise Estonia to develop the so-called “green paper” Estonian National Space Strategy and Development Goals for 2008–2015. This “green paper” analysed the future of the Space industry and especially Estonian future opportunities in cooperation with ESA and European key players. In the course of the project more than 400 Estonian companies having a potential in the space sector were charted. Invent Baltics also carried out company visits and technology audits which served the perfect opportunity to do profound analysis and make assessment of space technologies potential in Estonia. In addition, the study trip to the ESA Research and Technology Centre ESTEC at Noordwijk was organised for the entrepreneurs and underlying training materials for introducing the entering to the space sector and the peculiarities of operating therein were prepared.

In the course and as a result of the project “Space related awareness for entrepreneurial and R&D activities”, we recognized the fact that Estonia is not yet capable to lead bigger space programs but we do have competences in upstream, downstream and ground segment and there can be brought out about 50 – 70 private and public sector organisations which are active daily in space sector in general. Field of space-related competences in Estonia is quite broad starting from processing of earth-observation imagery and data processing and ending up with producing of finest quality spectroscopy instruments, rare earth metal products and large ground station antennas for instance. According to the results of our company visits and technology audits we can now state that there is an opportunity to create a completely new space-related business sector(s) in Estonia and thereby to increase high technology export.

According to Estonian Space Strategy “green paper” Estonia wants to deliver research and contribute to commercial services in line with Estonian socioeconomic needs, with main emphasis to applications of Earth Observation and Satellite Navigation. These industry sectors are continuing to grow globally quite fast and Estonian companies are weighing opportunities to jump onto this bandwagon. In order to be strong player in space sector having its origin from small country like Estonia, it is presupposed to have much more cooperation as well as consolidation between all important players. Therefore most promising space-related companies from Estonia have found very convincing reason to join their forces and to found non-profit association (cluster) of Estonian Space Companies E-Space. Creation of Estonian space cluster happened after the official end of the project “Space related awareness for entrepreneurial and R&D activities”. Without sufficient support from Invent Baltics throughout this process, it may have been impossible to achieve that kind of result.