The commitment to cross-border cooperation and the strengthening of relations between Spain and Portugal is reflected in the respective Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plans of both countries, as evidenced by the Spanish-Portuguese summit that took place on October 28, 2021, in Trujillo.
At this summit, both countries agreed on a framework for cooperation on space programmes and technologies of common interest initiated by concrete collaboration to develop a constellation of Earth observation satellites called the Atlantic Constellation.
This initiative aims to provide Earth observation data with a high frequency of revisit over the territory of both countries, complementing the systems already existing today, such as the Sentinel satellites of the European Copernicus program.
The observation of the Earth from space is one of the strategic lines of maximum interest since it not only generates highly qualified jobs in the development of space systems (ground segment, flight segment, launcher and operations), but also provides essential data for the creation of additional applications and services that generate employment in companies of added value in different disciplines such as agriculture, cartography, environment, oceanography, disaster prevention or atmospheric sciences.
This action is aimed at defining, developing and purchasing satellites and the associated ground segment that they will represent.
This system will work through a combination of platforms called Atlantic Pole to Pole Observation System of Systems (APOSS) with spatial, aerial, terrain, and floating components among others. The system will monitor the necessary variables, and the space sector will combine data supplied by existing international satellites such as: Copernicus - Sentinels, NOAA-NASA, etc., and in Spain: Peace, Deimos 1 and Deimos 2. These existing satellites will be complemented by the constellation of small satellites, the Atlantic Constellation, to ensure adequate revisit time.
The initial dimension of this constellation is 16 satellites, of which 8 will be developed at the Spanish level. These satellites will work together, albeit independently, intercommunicated and interoperable by a common ground operator.
Bilateral cooperation with Portugal will make it possible to double the capacity of this action by making a constellation of interoperable satellites through a common ground operator, to also solve some of the cross-border problems affecting both nations, such as early detection of fires, drought control or aspects related to agricultural management. This performance is one of those that gives an international character to this PERTE.
Uses of the Atlantic Constellation
The Atlantic Constellation system will be a costellation of small satellites to monitor climate change and specifically: bays and estuaries, the effects of natural disasters in coastal areas, sustainable food production, management of marine and coastal resources, monitoring of the marine and coastal ecosystem.
The solutions generated by these companies also have a positive impact on the lives of citizens since they help mitigate the effect of climate change, mitigate the effect of natural disasters, optimize natural resources such as crops or aquaculture, and alert us to emergency climatic situations. In addition, they help to understand the phenomena that generate and govern climate change or the evolution of marine ecosystems in the oceans.
Execution and results
At the meeting of the Council of Ministers held on 18/07/2023, the Agreement authorizing the Spanish Space Agency (ESA) to sign the Agreement for assistance of the European Space Agency (ESA) to Spain on the observation of the Earth (Atlantic Constellation) was approved.
ESA will assist ESA in launching an Invitation To Tender, which will be conducted in two phases, with two phases, a first phase involving two competing consortia, the results of which will serve to finalize the requirements. The winning consortium will begin execution in 2024.