Vision 2030: How Dübendorf Will Become the Gateway to Space
Industrial parks are currently being established in Earth’s orbit. Soon, it will be possible to manufacture many products there at low cost. Discover how experiments for the planned Starlab space station are made space-ready in Dübendorf, and how Swiss companies can benefit.
The International Space Station (ISS) still orbits 400 kilometers above us, but the research platform is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030. After that, the era of commercial space stations will begin. In the future, these stations will be used to produce medicines and materials, generate energy, and operate massive data centers. Weightlessness makes many of these applications easier, better and more cost-effective.
Three hundred to six hundred kilometers above Earth, international companies will soon establish orbiting industrial parks for the emerging New Space economy. Switzerland is well placed to benefit in fields in which it is already world-class, including pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering.
The gateway to this new economic zone is being created at Dübendorf Airfield. Starlab, a U.S. space company, will establish its European site there, under the leadership of Switzerland Innovationspark Zurich and the Center for Space and Aviation Switzerland and Liechtenstein (CSA). Projects from Swiss companies will be made space-ready in Dübendorf, then taken to Cape Canaveral and launched into orbit.
At the booth, see a faithful replica of John Glenn’s Friendship 7 space capsule, on loan from the Swiss Space Museum. Videos on New Space, manufacturing in space, and weightless flights will give you a glimpse of the future in space. Oliver Ullrich and Elisabeth Stark, leading figures at the University of Zurich and in the New Space sector, will be on hand to answer your questions.
