Space 4.0 – a common, democratic European space, part 2

Authors

Abstract

Today we are in a period of explosion of business taking advantage of the new opportunities offered by the new environment of economically open space. The period, sometimes called Space 4.0, is a paradigm shift, with changes in motivation and understanding, actors, and technology. For over a dozen years, under the name NewSpace, a revolution has been taking place in the space sector with the participation of new players, schools and universities, new commercial entrepreneurs and businesses. NewSpace entered the area traditionally occupied by OldSpace - government space agencies and large companies, testing new possibilities. These possibilities include new services, e.g. using data transmission from space, regarding communication, precise navigation, agriculture, surveillance, mapping, geology, climate, space weather, environmental monitoring, and security. The transformation of OldSpace into NewSpace was associated with the business risk of changing old, conservative business models into completely new ones, unknown in this area. The transformation is related to the need to maintain the changes in a reasonable legal system so as not to experience the "Wild West" again, this time in space. It is currently difficult to establish strict rules regarding the still distant colonization of Mars, but undoubtedly establishing rules for the use of the LEO area, i.e. the already crowded low Earth orbits, is becoming an increasingly urgent necessity. In the context of competition and technological cooperation between giga-regions, international cooperation, combating old prejudices and establishing equal opportunities, under the umbrella of social acceptance, we are building in Europe, not without difficulties, a common, democratic space.

Author Biographies

Ryszard S. Romaniuk, Warsaw University of Technology, Institute of Electronic Systems

University Professor; Editor-in-Chief IJET; Chair Edit. Board Ph.Let.PL; Ed.Adv.Bd. Photonics Spectra; Director of ISE, FE&IT, WUT; Research Secretary, Committee of Electronics and Telecommunications, Polish Academy of Sciences; Eisenhower Fellow; SPIE Fellow; Member: IEEE, OSA, EOS, EPS, Jury - The Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation, Polish Physical Society, SEP - Assoc.Pol.El.Eng., Photonics Society of Poland.

Piotr Orleański, Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences

Piotr Orleański, PhD engineer, director of the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, previously deputy director for technology development.

During over 40 years of work, he has gained extensive experience in developing and implementing new instruments in space missions, mainly in the fields of optoelectronics, on-board power supply and on-board computers, and space technologies. Piotr Orleański participated in several international satellite projects, including Integral, MarsExpress, Herschel, Solar Orbiter (employment at FHNW in Switzerland, 2009-2017), ExoMars, BRITE. Piotr Orleański is the mai creator of the Laboratory of Satellite Applications of FPGA Systems at CBK PAN, which was established in cooperation with the Foundation for Polish Science. He was and is a lecturer in space technologies at the Warsaw University of Technology, at CBK PAN, and at the Military University of Technology. He is a member of the Council of the Polish Space Agency and the Space and Satellite Research Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also a reviewer of many projects in EU Horizon 2020 / Space program.

Additional Files

Published

2024-10-29

Issue

Section

Space technologies, Astronomy