The Executive announces the creation of a Spanish space agency within the new Pexels National Security Strategy
Spain is currently integrated into the European Space Agency and has the National Institute of Aerospace Technology
The Government will create a Spanish Space Agency, as announced on Thursday by the director of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet. Iván Redondo has advanced the creation of this body during his intervention in the Mixed Commission of National Security,
“I announce the creation of the Spanish Space Agency”, said Redondo while explaining the five chapters into which the new National Security Strategy, which will be approved before summer and replaces that of 2017.
This announcement comes just two months after the Minister of Science and Innovation, Pedro Duque, ruled out last March the creation of that body claiming that space activities were already well coordinated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union.
“You can always create more structures, but that is always a bit scary, coming as I come, who have gone through the private sphere, creating many public structures that are not always the solution to things and, therefore, we think that for the moment we are going to stay as we are ”, explained Duque at the beginning of March in a discussion.
Beyond INTA
With the announcement made this Thursday by the Director of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, on which he has not provided further details, Spain will create an additional body to which Until now it supplied the assistance of a space agency proper: the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA).
The INTA, a Public Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Defense, was created in 1942 and specializes in research and technological development in the fields of aeronautics, space, security, defense and hydrodynamics. It has almost 1,500 employees and a budget in 2021 of about 150 million euros.
The creation of the future Spanish space agency responds to the demand of the space and aeronautical sector to create an organism that would group all the competences related to space and that are now distributed in several ministries.
