The Government has authorized funding of up to 9.25 million euros, between 2023 and 2027, for the Portuguese Space Agency (PT Space), according to a resolution of the Council of Ministers published last Friday in Diário da República.


The funds will be transferred annually to the budget of PT Space, created in 2019, and, according to the diploma published on Friday, "may be increased by the balance calculated in the previous year".


While Portugal has been a member of the ESA since 2000, the Portuguese Space Agency, based at Santa Maria Island in the Azores, is one of the world’s newest space agencies. It was created in 2019 as part of the Portugal Space 2030 Strategy. The goal of the Space Strategy is to have Portugal “be recognised as a worldwide authority in the science and economics of Space-Earth-Climate-Oceans interactions for the benefit of society and economy.”


It says that space “must be considered as a common good,” and that “many sectors can profit from space-based solutions, such as agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, urban development, transportation, maritime, shipping, tourism, banking, defense and security, and even the public health sector and epidemic monitoring.”