The inauguration comes ahead of the country’s legislative elections apparently in a bid to ensure its continuity after 14 October.

Economy minister Etienne Schneider has been at the helm of the country’s bid to beef up its new space sector, having launched space mining project spaceresources.lu, in 2016. This initiative aims to provide a legal, regulatory and business environment for the investors and companies to explore and use resources collected in space.

It is Schneider’s goal to make this initiative a permanent pillar of the Luxembourg economy in future, Paperjam says.

Unlike US space agency Nasa, Luxembourg’s agency will not carry out research or launches. Its purpose is to accelerate collaborations between economic project leaders of the space sector, investors and other partners.  

The agency will back an investment fund to invest in promising projects. Head of space affairs Marc Serres told Delano in May 2018 that financing was one of the department’s five pillars. Serres said at the time the fund would be a public private initiative with the state as anchor investor and private investors running it.

Paperjam reported on Tuesday that the fund’s investors would be presented in the coming days. It added that some 150 new space companies had approached the economy ministry in a bid to establish operations in Luxembourg.