Helsinki, Jan 31 (IANS): Sweden has launched its first military communications satellite, the country's Ministry of Defence announced on Friday.
As Sweden's first military satellite in space, the satellite GNA-3 was launched in August last year from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the United States, but the launch has been kept secret until now.
The satellite is now being operated by the Swedish Armed Forces and serves as a test and experimental project for future satellite launches, the ministry said on Friday.
The role of space as a strategic and operative realm is becoming more explicit for all actors, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, the ministry added.
Speaking on Swedish Television, Defence Minister Pal Jonson underlined that Sweden would in future have "certain independence and knowhow" in gathering intelligence information.
Sweden has unique geopolitical advantages as it has the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, Northern Sweden, and the possibility from there to launch polar satellites, Jonson added, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Swedish-Danish demonstrator satellite Bifrost is set to be launched in the summer of 2025, to demonstrate tactical reconnaissance and surveillance from space using AI-supported data processing. The demonstrator satellite Heimdall should be launched from Esrange, approximately 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, in 2027 or 2028.
Jonson detailed that GNA-3 is a communications satellite and serves as a "test and trial project" for future military satellite launches. In 2025, he said, the Swedish-Danish satellite Bifrost is expected to be launched, and in 2027–2028, the satellite Heimdall will be launched from Esrange in Kiruna.
"GNA-3 passes over Sweden four times a day and has an orbit of approximately 500 km altitude. The launch of GNA-3 is the result of a collaboration between the Swedish Armed Forces, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI) and the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV)," the Defence Minister posted on X.