A review carried out by the Portuguese Space Agency has found that over the last six years, the agency has invested roughly €40 million into projects with “dual-use potential.”
The term dual-use refers to the leveraging of technologies, infrastructure, and supply chains to serve both civilian and defense applications. This allows for greater scalability, cost efficiency, and resilience in critical sectors.
On 20 March, the Portuguese Space Agency published a review of over 65 projects carried out between 2019 and 2024 that have dual-use potential in the fields of communication, navigation, transportation, and space security. The combined value of all the projects reviewed was €39.757 million. For comparison, Portugal’s contributions to the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2025 alone totaled €30.4 million.
Each of the more than 65 projects was categorised as having low, medium, or high dual-use potential. A total of 28 projects were identified as having high dual-use potential, representing an investment of €13.752 million. Fifteen projects were classified as medium potential, with a combined value of €16.432 million, while 23 were considered to have low dual-use potential, accounting for €9.573 million in total funding.
Projects identified by the Portuguese Space Agency as having high dual-use potential include Smart Launcher, developed by Deimos Engenharia, which focuses on autonomous control systems for space launchers with defense applications; MONINT, a GNSS signal integrity monitoring system led by GMV and the Instituto de Telecomunicações; and ATON, a maritime surveillance constellation now being implemented with RRP funding. Other notable initiatives include a secure optical ground station for quantum communications and TECH2CONNECT, which aims to deliver global IoT satellite connectivity via hosted payloads.
