The design and implementation of the KvarkenSat small satellite is part of the 'New Space Digital Economy Innovation Center' project funded by the EU's Interreg Botnia-Atlantica programme, the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia and the province of Västerbotten. The project is abbreviated as KvarkenSpaceEco.
KvarkenSpaceEco is a project focusing on the new space economy, implemented by 10 universities and research institutes on both sides of the Kvarken. The actors in the project are involved in developing an ecosystem around space data and economy in the Kvarken region, as well as the Kvarken Space Center.
'The project will make space data available to the region's residents, companies, schools and other actors, as well as introduce them to the opportunities brought by the new space economy,' says the director responsible for the project, Professor Heidi Kuusniemi from the University of Vaasa.
In the KvarkenSpaceEco project, a ground station has been built on the university campus in Vaasa, which receives data transmitted by satellites and, in time, will control the region's own small satellite. The ground station will become part of the space data laboratory of the University of Vaasa to be built in the Technobothnia research center.