New ESA center in Poland? Prime Minister: “We are in talks”

„We have ambitions to build a National Satellite Operations System. The country must be more active in this area. (…) This is related to our project for the European Space Agency to decide to build its center in Poland,” - announced Prime Minister Donald Tusk during a press conference with Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.

“I would like to thank the president of the Polish Space Agency for taking up this mission. The Minister of Economy and Finance will also be able to make his debut in his role (…) in order to support this idea” - added the prime minister. Donald Tusk also announced that during the conference, Minister of Finance and Economy Andrzej Domański met with Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency, to discuss this and other topics.

Dual-use and more?

POLSA’s President Marta Wachowicz commented that the ESA center in Poland could deal with dual-use technologies. She added that this would be important for the country’s economy and security. “This is a measure of our ambitions; a very important and bold step,” emphasized the POLSA president. Currently, no further details are known.

Referring to the completed mission of the Polish astronaut, Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted that “we are willing to spend a lot of money to ensure that Poland gains as much as possible from this.”

The government plane carrying the Polish astronaut landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport on July 24, a few minutes after 11 a.m. Upon his arrival in Poland, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski also met with Minister of National Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. The Director General of the European Space Agency also participated in the meeting.

Uznański's mission

Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is an ESA project astronaut, the second Pole in space after Mirosław Hermaszewski, and the first citizen of our country to set foot on board the International Space Station (ISS). The Ax-4 mission, in which he is participating, began on June 25.

Apart from the Pole, the mission also involved American astronaut legend Peggy Whitson, Hungarian Tibor Kapu, and Indian pilot Shubhanshu Shukla. On June 26, the Dragon „Grace” capsule with the four astronauts docked with the ISS, and the astronauts returned to Earth on July 15.

For over two weeks on the ISS (19 days, 17 of which were “full” days) Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski carried out the IGNIS mission (polish part of the Ax-4 mission). The Polish Space Agency confirmed that during this time, the astronaut conducted 13 specialized experiments developed by Polish scientists. More info on Space24.pl website.