Finland and Colorado – Partners in Space
Finland and Colorado have agreed to help each other turbocharge their thriving space sectors. What can the two leaders in space bring to the table, and what opportunities exist for collaboration?
In May, 2023, the United States released a Strategic Framework for Space Diplomacy(Link to another website.), which outlines goals for US leadership in the new race for space but also calls for increasing international cooperation with partner countries.
Over the past year, Finland has strengthened its space research collaboration with the US through both NASA and state-level partnerships. The latter has focused on areas such as space weather, satellites and remote sensing.
At the state level, Finland has set its sights on Colorado(Link to another website.), a state with roughly the same population as Finland that prides itself on being the second-largest aerospace economy in the United States.
Colorado's strategic location, providing one-bounce satellite connections to both Asia and Europe, coupled with its diverse array of space exploration programs, research laboratories, and universities, are among the state's numerous advantages in the New Space race.
Colorado hosts a multitude of major companies within the aerospace sector, including Ball Aerospace Technology, Lockheed Martin, and United Launch Alliance. Additionally, the state is home to universities, research centers and NASA facilities.
In 2022, Finland signed a Memorandum of Understanding(Link to another website.) with Colorado to advance sustainability and advanced technologies around quantum and high-performance computing, the green economy and aerospace.
“The relationship Colorado has cultivated with Finland will create mutually beneficial opportunities in aerospace, computing technologies, climate resilience and more,” said Patrick Meyers, Colorado’s executive director of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
Both parties have since taken concrete steps to enhance their cooperation. In June 2023(Link to another website.), Finnish companies and research institutions met with three major aerospace players in the US: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Finnish companies in the group included Aboa Space Research, Aurora Propulsion Technologies and Kuva Space.
As a research partner, Finland brings valuable expertise and resources in the study of space weather and the Earth’s magnetosphere. Sophisticated space weather models like Professor Minna Palmroth’s Vlasiator require high-power computing resources, such as the LUMI supercomputer, for their calculations.
In October, 2022, CSC, a Finnish state-owned provider of computational and network services, announced it would launch a collaboration project(Link to another website.) with Colorado to develop and promote the LUMI infrastructure.
LUMI, Europe’s fastest supercomputer, is designed to serve as a tool for understanding complex phenomena(Link to another website.) such as climate change. While European researchers can freely apply for access to LUMI’s resources, the collaboration project with Colorado also allows the project’s US counterparts to access its computing power.
“Colorado is home to numerous national laboratories and universities conducting high-quality research relevant to the space sector. They are interested in working together with Finnish research entities,” says Maijastiina Arvola, CSC’s Program Manager for Global Collaboration.
“Similarly, Finland has extremely competitive research and research infrastructures.”
Ms. Arvola says that the various components of a research and innovation ecosystem can foster one another: research around satellite technology can serve the needs of atmospheric research by improving the availability of data.
“I believe that by building these connections and collaboration we are creating the necessary conditions for breakthroughs that will address major global challenges.”
CSC's collaboration project is just one of a wide range of opportunities available to Finnish and Coloradan research organizations and enterprises. Finland and Colorado's thriving partnership allows both parties to capitalize on the growing commercial and military activities around space.
Kim Haldin / Embassy of Finland