Taking on SpaceX: Why Germany is building its own spaceport – DW – 10/21/2023
Taking on SpaceX: Why Germany is building its own spaceport – DW – 10/21/2023
Private companies like SpaceX are taking on established space agencies. Germany is hoping to shore up its position by opening a spaceport on the North Sea.
I'm glad SpaceX has pushed the envelope of launching but man do we need more competition.
Blue Origin hasn't exactly flopped but it's so. fucking. slow.
I'd love to see Rocket Lab really thrive!
Good to see. Though its only for microlaunchers, this is how you foster a space industry!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Satellite data is growing evermore crucial to a range of economic sectors, from digitalized industrial production to self-driving vehicles.
Companies like SpaceX, with its huge fleet of satellites and rockets, represent dangerous competition for established space-faring countries.
To start, Dutch company T-Minus will launch a rocket from the German-Offshore Spaceport Alliance (GOSA) mobile platform.
In the future, the North Sea platform will be used for European microlaunchers — rockets loaded with small satellites — capable of carrying up to one ton into low-Earth orbits.
The BDI introduced its "NewSpace" initiative four years ago with hopes of seeing Germany profit from the booming commercialization of space travel.
This leads to bottlenecks in land-based spaceports," Sabine von der Recke, a member of GOSA's management board, said.
The original article contains 425 words, the summary contains 119 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good. The situation now is not great. One single company is beating the rest of humanity combined. Every major economic power should have their own launch capabilities.
Why do far north? With a flight plan over land. I just does not sound smart to me.
Proximity to German heavy industry counts for something, I suppose. But yeah, these things are usually done a little closer to the equator lol