Asturias is a region in North Spain with a long history in coal mining and the steel industry, and severely hit by the lasts economic crisis. However, Asturians are people that doesn’t give up easily, they are innovative and they have a deep understanding of technologies and the industry (thanks to the University of Oviedo and its amazing engineering, mining and sciences departments, as well as the international companies that choose Asturias to establish their research centers). Thus, Asturias offers a great environment for technology innovation, an amazing quality of life and well, Asturian food).

Asturias is currently looking to the future and exploring new opportunities. These are mostly linked to telecommunications and digitization, and take advantage of the capacities already developed in the region (5G and cybersecurity laboratories, public and open narrow band for IoT, among others). The Asturias’ public university (University of Oviedo) has also shown interest in innovation on space resources and technologies by creating the Institute of Space Sciences and Technologies and a new postgraduate program on Space Sciences and Technologies. This seems an interesting starting point to make Asturias an attractive location to develop NewSpace companies.

In this context, the Asturias’ Department of Science, Innovation and Universities is launching a Preliminary Market Consultation to create (1) a test bench for rocket engines and (2) a test bench for nanosatellites.

Test bench for rocket engines: Asturias is considering the creation of a mobile test bench for small rocket engines ( thrusts between 1 to 20 kg ), no larger than a ship container, with associated power supply and monitoring systems, and preferred using materials that promote circularity.

Test bench for nanosatellites: The challenge is to propose a mobile test bench for nanosatellites, again no larger than a ship contained and that includes: guidance control, solar and magnetic field simulators, vacuum environment, and thrust gauges.

All the information can be found here, unfortunately it is only in Spanish and they only accept proposals in Spanish. However, let me know if you have any question, maybe I can help.