The Netherlands Space Office has signed an agreement with the NXTGEN High-Tech programme to collaborate on how a €42 million investment in laser satellite communication will be spent.
Laser satellite communication is one of several domains that the Netherlands has identified as part of its national space policy, offering significant future growth potential.
“The need for fast and secure communication on earth and in space will only increase in the near future,” said Netherlands Space Office (NSO) director Harm van de Wetering. “Dutch companies and institutes have unique knowledge and experience to make an important contribution to this. It is great that the economic opportunities of this development have been appreciated and are now receiving an extra boost from the National Growth Fund.”
In April 2022, the country’s National Growth Fund approved €450 million in funding for the NXTGEN High-Tech proposal. The initiative is part of a larger €5-billion investment aimed at funding programmes focused on improving the country’s economic growth. In May 2023, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy officially approved the creation of the NXTGEN High-Tech programme, which brought together 330 participants from industry and knowledge institutions. The announcement revealed that in addition to the €450 million investment from the National Growth Fund, an additional €550 million would be made available to the programme.
The laser satellite communication initiative has been allocated €42 million from the National Growth Fund and another €30 million from the country’s national space programme. According to a press release, both investments will go through NSO and ultimately end up in European programmes led by the European Space Agency.
Signed on 20 February, the NSO collaboration agreement with NXTGEN High-Tech aims to determine the best path to allocate the investment to ensure the Netherlands secures a world-leading position in the development and supply of laser satellite communication.
The country has already made significant progress with the development of laser satellite communication technology. In April 2023, the country’s NorSat-TD satellite was successfully launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying, among others, the Small Communication Active Terminal (SmallCAT) instrument, a laser communication technology demonstrator. The instrument was developed by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in collaboration with AAC Hyperion and the Ministry of Defense. In late January, NSO announced that the satellite had successfully completed its first data transmission via laser satellite communication connecting to a ground station in The Hague.
