As the world’s most versatile space center, there are always plenty of activities ongoing at Esrange Space Center. Apart from the new orbital launch capabilities, a selection of the latest scientific projects were presented and discussed at the 26th ESA PAC Symposium in Lucerne, Switzerland, last week.

New sounding rocket platforms and vehicles are being test-flown and qualified all over Europe with great success. The new Red Kite rocket motor was presented, a future workhorse for research on sounding rockets, highly suitable for our services on the base and within our SubOrbital Express program. Red Kite is developed in Germany by Bayern Chemie and DLR Moraba.

At Esrange we have a brand-new multi-purpose facility (MPF), which was a hot topic among the participants. It is an integration hall for rocket and balloon payloads, which also houses laboratory and office facilities.

Many students presented their research conducted within the REXUS/BEXUS program, which is a collaboration between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) that allows students from higher education institutions to study experiments onboard sounding rockets and stratospheric balloons at Esrange.

ESA PAC Symposium is a biannual conference with the member states of EASP (Esrange and Andøya Special Project). The member states are France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. The conference provides a discussion forum for scientists and engineers who are using sounding rockets and stratospheric balloons for basic and technical research.

It is always a pleasure to meet our fellow EASP partners. We conclude this year’s ESA PAC Symposium with great success and look forward to the 27th ESA Symposium in Norway in 2026.