SpacEconomy Stakeholder Newsletter 1/2026
Our Strategic Research project, launched in October, has gained strong momentum. Our website provides extensive information about the project as well as nearly daily space news items relevant to our work. The news is also shared in our LinkedIn group, which already has more than 200 members.
At the beginning of December, Ia Hyttinen joined the project as Project Manager. She brings solid experience in administration as well as in projects funded by the Academy of Finland and Strategic Research.
“I haven’t previously paid much attention to space activities, but this has turned out to be very interesting – and above all, important!” says Ia, who is relocating from the Helsinki metropolitan area to Tampere.
SpacEconomy internal kick-off at Heureka in December
In December, SpacEconomy experts gathered at Heureka for a joint kick-off event (see photo above).
The aim of the meeting was to formally launch the project and establish a shared operating model: we clarified roles, planned the project’s progress, and agreed on practical collaboration methods.
Many of the participants already knew each other from previous collaborations, so relatively little time was needed for introductions.
During the event, we also visited Heureka’s current space-themed exhibition “Journey in Space”, guided by producer Sami Pihkala. The exhibition offered opportunities to try a moonwalk simulation, travel to Mars, eliminate space debris, and operate a robot moving on the surface of the Moon.
Heureka’s exhibition provides an inspiring and immersive insight into space – warmly recommended to anyone interested in current space topics. Heureka’s newly renovated planetarium also reopened just after Christmas.
Winter Satellite Workshop in January
The annual space student event organized by Aalto University, the Winter Satellite Workshop, was held at Dipoli in Otaniemi, Espoo, on January 20–23.
The event broke previous records, attracting approximately 2,300 participants – including dozens of researchers from our project – and featuring more than 380 presentations. One of these was a keynote presentation about our project delivered by our Principal Investigator, Heidi Kuusniemi.
This marked SpacEconomy’s first major public appearance.
There was also an exhibition area at Dipoli in which we participated. During the workshop, our stand hosted several hundred engaging discussions and led to many new connections. We also took part in the Researchers’ Night event held on Thursday evening, January 22.
See you again next year!
Space and the Winter Satellite Workshop were prominently featured on Yle’s morning programs Ylen aamu and Ykkösaamu on January 21. In addition to Heidi, guests included Tero Vihavainen, Leading Specialist at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and Finland’s “Head of Space,” and Pekka Laurila, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ICEYE.
The programs are available on Yle Areena: Ylen aamu and Ykkösaamu. The Winter Satellite Workshop presentations (including Heidi’s) can be viewed on the WSW YouTube channel.
University of Helsinki launches Sustainable Space MOOC
Although our project has only just begun, results are already emerging – this initiative has been in preparation for some time and was published appropriately as SpacEconomy started. Our partner, the University of Helsinki, has launched a new open MOOC course, Sustainable Space, which offers a comprehensive overview of both the fundamentals of space activities and key sustainability issues in the space sector.
The course covers topics such as satellite launches, the interaction between space activities and the Sun, and the legal and ethical dimensions of space utilization.
The course is open to anyone interested in the topic – no prior knowledge is required.
As the SpacEconomy project progresses, additional open MOOC courses will be released, focusing on themes such as space data processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
National Land Survey of Finland opens research data to companies
Researchers at the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute of the National Land Survey of Finland continuously produce precise data on how and when GNSS interference has been detected in Finland. This data is now available to companies developing new solutions to protect against and prepare for such interference.
Similarly, the Geospatial Research Institute collects observations of space debris and its characteristics. This data has also been opened to companies developing methods for tracking space debris.
More information on both topics is available on the National Land Survey’s website.
Participation and collaboration ahead this spring
There is much more to come during the spring season. One example is a citizens’ panel organized by the University of Turku, which will explore how “ordinary” citizens perceive the space sector and their views on its future development needs.
We will also meet corporate partners in Sodankylä in April at the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s SpacEconomy Beyond the Arctic event, held in connection with the ESA-supported Sodankylä Supersite Review, which specializes in ground validation of remote sensing satellites. The event is open to all our stakeholder representatives, and further information will be shared later.
In addition, we will soon conduct a stakeholder survey to gather views and needs in order to refine the project’s research questions.
More information will be published on our website and in our next newsletter.