The Netherlands has participated in international and European space activities for more than 50 years. The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) is the space agency of the government, advising and implementing the national space policy. NSO reports to the ministries of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy; Education, Culture and Science; Infrastructure and Water Management; and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
Important national activities and recent policy initiatives include the creation of the Satellite Data Portal in 2012, which contains earth observation data covering the Netherlands’ territory from several commercial satellite missions. The main purpose of the data portal is to offer the user community data complementary to Copernicus satellite data, and develop national downstream capabilities. It provides free access to national actors for civil and commercial use.
In 2017, the Netherlands allocated some EUR 128 million (USD 145 million) to space activities, a 15% decrease in real terms compared with 2008. 65% of the funding was allocated to ESA and 18% to EUMETSAT. 37% of the ESA funding was devoted to science, followed by 22% to the launchers programme. Other priorities include the satellite communications and technology development programmes.
Important national space technology and research actors include several public research institutes (e.g. Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), and Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), several universities with capabilities in astronomy, earth observation and aerospace engineering, in addition to private companies (like Airbus Netherlands) and many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The country also hosts the European Space Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC), the largest establishment of the European Space Agency (ESA), which develops and tests many of the Organisation’s projects and missions, as well as the Galileo Reference Centre, operated by the European GNSS Agency.
The Netherlands space industry has strong capabilities in several industry segments, including manufacturing subsystems and downstream applications. The space manufacturing sector provides subsystems (e.g. instruments and solar panels) and components to European satellites and launchers, such as sensors, structures and igniters. The Netherlands currently has two domestically-built instruments in orbit. The air-quality measuring instrument TROPOMI, flying on the Copernicus satellite Sentinel-5P, launched in 2017, and the ozone monitoring instrument OMI, on the US satellite AURA. The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute processes and analyses the scientific data from these two instruments. Several companies in the Netherlands are also important actors in the growing small and very small satellite industry (e.g. cubesats) as manufacturers and launch service providers, including for instance Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS) and Hiber).
Important downstream/value-adding activities include earth observation products and services for precision farming, infrastructure modelling (incl. pipelines, deformation) and water management, and navigation (e.g. GNSS devices). Furthermore, a number of satellite operators have ground stations (Inmarsat) or their main office (SES Networks, Leosat) in the Netherlands. Annual turnover of the Netherlands space industry is estimated at some EUR 600 million (USD 663 million) (Holland High Tech, 2018[2]).
The Netherlands’ share in scientific publications in the OECD space literature dataset (see guide to the profiles) is comparable to that of Canada and Spain and has increased since 2000. In space-related patent applications, Netherlands’ share has remained stable.
Disbursements on space-related ODA projects over the period 2002-16 focussed mainly on agriculture and rural development (including food production) and water management. Since 2013, the Netherlands Space Office runs the Geodata for Agriculture and Water programme (G4AW), which funds projects and partnerships in developing countries in Africa and Asia, developing satellite-based information services for smallholder farmers and pastoralists and providing useful and timely agro-meteorological advice as well as financial/insurance products. An important objective is to improve sustainable food production, with an effective use of inputs (water, seeds, pesticides, etc.) (Netherlands Space Office, 2016[1]). Positive impacts of this programme have already been registered, with programme participants reporting 10-15% harvest increases as well as a reduced use of inputs
