When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to set foot on the Moon in July 1969, Aldrin set up an experiment from the University of Bern right in front of the American flag. A sheet of aluminium foil captured particles from the solar wind and was later brought back to Earth for analysis. The experiment by the Bern-based physicist Johannes Geiss marked the beginning of a long series of Swiss contributions to international space missions. Since then, instruments from Switzerland have travelled to Mercury, Mars, comets and towards Jupiter. Others are studying exoplanets outside our solar system.
Although Switzerland has neither its own large launch vehicles nor a national space agency, says Raphael Marschall, Professor of Experimental Physics in the Department of Space Research and Planetary Sciences at the University of Bern, “but we play an important role in European space research and have established a strong position in selected areas”. Membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) is of enormous importance. It enables Swiss universities and companies to bid for ESA missions and contracts.
Key research centres such as the universities of Bern, Geneva and Zurich, ETH Zurich, EPFL and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) complement one another in this regard. The University of Geneva, for example, is among the world’s leading institutions in the observation and research of exoplanets, whilst ETH Zurich possesses extensive expertise in engineering, satellite technology and laboratory analysis. And the University of Bern focuses on research into the Solar System and the construction of high-precision instruments such as mass spectrometers, laser instruments, cameras and small telescopes.
This broad spectrum is also reflected in the research missions in which Switzerland is involved. ETH Zurich, for example, coordinated Switzerland’s contribution to an infrared instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope. The University of Bern developed one of the key instrument packages for the Rosetta comet mission. Researchers from Bern also built a camera that is orbiting Mars on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and has already delivered tens of thousands of images of its surface.
On the BepiColombo mission, meanwhile, a Swiss laser altimeter will measure the surface and topography of Mercury. And on board the JUICE space probe, which is due to reach Jupiter in 2031, there is a mass spectrometer from Bern. There are also many other missions. One of the most important is CHEOPS: this space telescope for studying exoplanets is the first mission jointly led by Switzerland and the ESA. Overall management lies with the University of Bern, whilst the scientific operations centre is based at the University of Geneva.
“Swiss contributions are flying all over the Solar System,” sums up Raphael Marschall. He himself is currently leading a project proposing a mission to an asteroid to collect samples there and bring them back to Earth. “Europe has never brought back its own material from a planetary body – yet we have excellent laboratories to analyse such samples,” he says.
The research community benefits from the traditional strengths of the industrial sector: universities generally develop their instruments in collaboration with Swiss companies that produce components such as telescope structures, precision mechanical parts or electronics. Marschall estimates that at least half of the construction costs for the Swiss instruments go to companies. The scientific team defines, for example, the resolution a camera must achieve. A design is then developed in collaboration with the companies that can be used under space conditions.
The exchange works both ways. Universities often have complex facilities with which they qualify their components or instruments for use in space. Such facilities are also available to companies, says Marschall, “one example is a vibration test rig at the University of Bern, which simulates the stresses experienced during a rocket launch”.
Such collaborations are important, says Grégoire Bourban. He is the head of Space Exchange Switzerland, the national, federally funded platform for promoting and connecting the Swiss space sector, based at EPFL. Through missions such as those in the ESA programmes, Switzerland has built up an entire ecosystem of experienced engineers, scientific institutions and specialised suppliers over decades. “Young companies can also build on this foundation,” emphasises Bourban.
Indeed, there is a whole host of new, innovative Swiss companies looking to capitalise on the growing economic opportunities in space. Bourban cites PAVE Space, an EPFL start-up, as an example. It is developing a transport vehicle capable of rapidly moving satellites from low Earth orbit to a higher target orbit following launch. This spring, PAVE Space raised US$40 million in seed funding for this purpose, says Bourban, “which is a sign that even a Swiss space project can mobilise substantial private capital”.
The next step, however, is more difficult: as a company grows, it must industrialise its technology, build up production capacity and expand internationally. In Switzerland, though, there is a lack of investment funds geared towards this growth phase, explains Bourban. In the space sector in particular, companies require a great deal of capital because development, testing and certification take a long time, and infrastructure is costly.
The basis for economic success in the space industry, however, remains the operation of scientific missions. These, too, are complex and expensive – a major mission costs hundreds of millions or even billions of Swiss francs. They can only be realised through international collaboration. For Bourban, it is therefore clear that Switzerland must continue to invest in ESA programmes in particular in the future.
It is precisely here, however, that he sees dark clouds gathering on the horizon. The federal government intends to cut the contributions to the ESA for 2027 compared with those for 2026, he says, “I consider that a problematic signal”. This is because the position Switzerland has built up in space research since the solar wind experiment cannot be taken for granted. Maintaining it requires long-term political and financial commitment.
| Role | Title + Name |
|---|---|
| Text by | Simon Koechlin |
| Expertise | Grégoire Bourban, Raphael Marschall |
