XETRA:OHB 4 September 2025 - 23 May 2026

Sweden’s involvement in space stretches back over six decades. In 1961, Swedish engineers launched the country’s first sounding rocket from a remote site in northern Sweden Sscspace. This pioneering step was followed by the construction of Esrange Space Center above the Arctic Circle, which saw its first rocket launch in November 1966 Sscspace. Operated initially by the European Space Research Organisation and transferred to Swedish ownership in 1972, Esrange became the heart of Sweden’s early space activities Sscspace Sscspace. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden built expertise in suborbital rockets and balloon flights for scientific research, carving out a reputation in high-latitude atmospheric and auroral studies. By the 1980s, Sweden moved from sounding rockets to satellites. The country’s first satellite, Viking, was launched in 1986 as a scientific mission to study the magnetosphere Irf. Viking was developed with Swedish industry under the management of SSC, demonstrating Sweden’s growing capabilities in spacecraft engineering Irf. This success kicked off a series of Swedish satellites over the next decade: Freja examined Earth’s aurora, Astrid-1 and Astrid-2 were microsatellites for space physics, and Odin became a trailblazing astronomy and atmospheric research satellite Wikipedia. Notably, Sweden also contributed to ESA missions – for example, Swedish