Spain’s Stellar Ascent: Inside the Boom of Its Space and Satellite Industry
Historical Evolution: From Early Tracking to First Satellites Spain’s space journey began in the dawn of the Space Age. In the 1960s, Spain partnered with NASA to host critical tracking stations – Maspalomas in the Canary Islands and Robledo de Chavela near Madrid – which relayed signals for NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions ibanet.org. (Maspalomas would later support Apollo 11 and Skylab, reflecting Spain’s early contribution to human spaceflight esa.int esa.int.) In 1966, Spain built the El Arenosillo launch site in Huelva for suborbital sounding rockets surinenglish.com, marking its first steps toward launch capability. By 1974, Spain achieved a
