"The Financial Times called me 'Luxembourg's Mr Satellite'"

On 26 October, work officially began on the Neos Space Campus in Kockelscheuer – a project expected to cost just under 196 million. Spanning 10,000 square metres, the site will house test laboratories, an incubator for around 20 space start-ups and the new headquarters of the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), right next to a new high-tech manufacturing facility operated by SES.

This comes as no surprise. After all, whenever space-based defence, autonomy and crisis communication are discussed in Europe today, there is no getting round Luxembourg. Ever since Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the global arms race, the Luxembourg space sector has been gaining massive strategic importance thanks to its inherent dual-use nature. At a local level, the start-up scene is growing steadily, and even Elon Musk's competitors are making their mark in Luxembourg: from Jeff Bezos' Amazon satellite project Kuiper to pioneers of the new direct-to-cell technology such as AST SpaceMobile.

The idea of securing the country's sovereignty in orbit and exploiting it for economic gain has shaped policy here for over 40 years. A current member of the SNCI board named Paul Zimmer knows these debates inside out; after all, it was he who coordinated the space project for almost ten years as a conseiller in the Ministry of State and as government commissioner at Spuerkeess.

He opens the door to his home in high spirits; even before the interview officially begins, his knowledge of SES and Astra is bubbling out of him. "You see, I just can't let it go, " he remarks a little later. Just last year, he published the book The Astra Story, in which he recounts the history of the creation of what is now the world's largest geostationary satellite constellation in minute detail.