The Catalan space race

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l astrophysicist Stephen Hawking had stated on more than one occasion that the future of humanity, in the long term, involved "leaving" Earth. It seems that this thought of Hawking is becoming more and more ingrained and most of the population can already recognize companies such as the aerospace transport company SpaceX -founded by Elon Musk with the aim of being able to take humans to Mars-, Blue Origin -driven by Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos- or Virgin Galactic -which is part of the Virgin Group conglomerate of British magnate Richard Branson-.

Here we do not have such media-savvy or popular companies, but we can find some examples that are sowing the space race within the territory. CubeSats, for example, are very small satellites and reasonably cheap to put into orbit but which, in turn, have great potential. The co-inventor of the CubeSat standard is the Catalan aerospace technology developer Jordi Puig-Suari, one of the founders of Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, although based in California. The first CubeSats were put into orbit in 2003 and the number has grown considerably.

But it is not necessary to go to California to find companies dedicated to the space race. In Catalonia we can find Zero2Infinity which, founded in 2009 and from Barberà del Vallès, sends helium-powered polyethylene balloons to the stratosphere with technological devices to be tested before being definitively sent into space. In addition, they put satellites into orbit at a much lower price than, until now, companies such as NASA or ESA (the European Space Agency) have done.

Startlab is also a high-tech company that since 2000 has provided innovation in two areas: space and neuroscience. Starlab Space, in this case, offers technical consulting and value-added Earth Observation (EO) services to clients throughout Europe and contributes significantly to various technologies and applications of the European Space Agency (ESA) from its offices on Avenida Tibidabo in Barcelona.

These are just a couple of examples, as the Barcelona area and surroundings have initiatives, among others, such as Pangea Aerospace, (located in the Cibernàrium space of Barcelona Activa), a startup that is working on the manufacture of a rocket to put nanosatellites into orbit, for example.

THE FIRST ESA INCUBATOR

Also from Barcelona Activa, the local development agency of the Barcelona City Council, and from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), for several years now they have been able to see this spatial trend and both have been involved, until now, in the ESA Business Incubation Center (BIC) Barcelona, the first incubator that the European Space Agency established in Spain (since 2015 there is also one in Getafe -Madrid-).

The objective of this incubator is to facilitate the creation of companies that base their business on the use of space systems or technologies for terrestrial applications. Located on the Baix Llobregat campus of the UPC, specifically in Castelldefels, and managed until now by Barcelona Activa, the ESA BIC Barcelona joins the network formed by eight other spaces distributed in different European countries, such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium or Italy. These spaces currently host about 90 companies a year and, until now, have facilitated the creation of more than 250 technological startups in Europe.

That there is an upward trend in space companies – and that this trend will increase – is evident, among others, with one of the campaigns of 4 Years From Now (4YFN), the entrepreneurs' fair that takes place during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) from February 25 to 27 of this year, where also with the help of Zero2Infinity, those who first answer where their startup will be in four years, will be able to touch the stars in #4YFNtouchthestars. Paraphrasing Buzz Lightyear and for all audiences to understand... "to infinity and beyond!".