By: Nana
Appiah Acquaye
The European Space Agency
(ESA) has continued work towards establishing a new centre in Poland, with
resilience at the heart of its future activities, Director General Josef
Aschbacher has said.
Aschbacher said the work
continued during his mission to Poland this week, which included discussions at
the Warsaw Security Forum, a visit to Polish-Finnish space company ICEYE and
meetings with Polish and European officials.
“With Minister Andrzej
Domański, including through our joint Task Force, we continued our work towards
establishing the new ESA Centre in Poland, with resilience at the heart of its
future activities,” Aschbacher said.
At the Warsaw Security
Forum, discussions centred on Europe’s security, resilience and ability to act.
Space is increasingly central to all three, from Earth observation and secure
communications to navigation and the protection of critical infrastructure, he
said.
Aschbacher also visited
ICEYE, where he said he saw the strength of Poland’s growing space ecosystem
and a European company scaling up capabilities in Earth observation, with
applications across security, resilience, emergency management and commercial services.
He also met Frontex
Executive Director Hans Leijtens, with the two organisations taking first steps
towards closer cooperation.
“ESA's technical expertise
and Frontex’s operational experience offer strong complementarities,
particularly in Earth observation, security and resilience,” Aschbacher said.
Another development during
the mission was the signing of the SAWA mission contract, led by Creotech
Instruments S.A., which Aschbacher described as an important step for Polish
industry.
“With ESA acting as anchor
customer, SAWA is a strong example of how institutional demand can help
European industry develop capabilities that strengthen our resilience,” he
said.
Aschbacher said Poland was
investing, building capabilities and bringing ambition to the European space
sector, adding that ESA was committed to turning that momentum into concrete
European space strength.
