Interview:
Engström on the Swedish Space Corporation

Born Karlskrona, Sweden, 1939.
Masters degree, 1964, then PhD, 1971, Stockholm University.
1965-70, ESRO fellow, Culham Laboratory, UK.
1970, joined Teleutredningar in Stockholm.
1972-85, President, Swedish Space Corporation (SSC).
1985-94, joined ESA, directing Columbus project.
1994-2001, ESA Director of Launchers.

ESA: What were the biggest decisions taken in the early years of SSC and when did you start attracting attention to what you wanted to do?

Frederik Engström

When people and industry all of a sudden listened to me, they thought I was crazy, especially my board. Around 1974 we were thinking about direct TV satellites, there was a 4-page memo involved – because of the Nordsat issue. Unfortunately, we were about 15 years ahead of the rest of the world. I went to Japan and to the USA, I talked to Hughes and they were actually right in there from the start.

That was when we fought our way through a ‘cultural mafia’ and their statements that rubbish was rubbish even from satellites. We came up on the radar screen for the government and, with everything that happened, they thought there was merit just in doing something which was perhaps not European, but Nordic.

Sweden has for 50 or 60 years tried to achieve something on a Nordic scale but has always failed. The Nordic scale was always the objective. But Nordsat was yet another big failed Nordic idea and so we went on to create Tele-X. So I think that taking the Tele-X decision in 1979.

ESA: Why was that important?

Frederik Engström

I just read in ‘Swedish Space Corporation, 25 years, 1972-1997’, that the budget was SEK 1250 million, but I recall that we actually had about SEK 200m less than that. I remember how this figure came up. We had said Tele-X would cost SEK 800m. I was sitting on a plane to Helsinki with Thomas Sidenbladh from the Ministry of Industry and thought to myself, “I can’t do it for SEK 800m. Our estimate was SEK 1500m, but that is too much, I cannot sell that politically, so we concluded that SEK 1250m was sellable.” After that, I went to the ministry and said SEK 1250m.

We succeeded in designing to that figure, but it took a lot of work and ingenuity. As I said, budgets and planning are only there to have something to compare. Anyway, that was how we started, the ‘tolerance’ was acceptable and Swedish firms, especially Saab, were able to build up a network of contacts. Saab had a large amount of industrial work, they created Saab Space, and so on. In retrospect, the Tele-X decision enabled us to get our foot in the door, as it led to us working on Viking.

ESA: What sort of impact did the Viking satellite have?

Frederik Engström

At that time Saab were not pleased with the way we went about things – I've mentioned the story about the SEK 1500m versus the SEK 800m. One had to be very pragmatic in dealing with the situation and we embarked on the Viking satellite to learn how to operate. Again there was a lot of money at stake. That was when I went to Boeing and told them what we were going to do. Boeing sent over a team. They had an exceptional Director who was very forceful in getting his point of view across.

Anyway, Boeing took an approach that they felt they could justify and we brought together Swedish industry, above all Saab, and Boeing. Boeing was a very impressive company. So we completed that satellite for about SEK 150m, which was half the cost projected when we were with Swedish industry. I felt very uneasy about the SEK 300m figure, as this was a large amount of money to put on the table, and we had to succeed. We had to be very pragmatic and the Saab role was diminished.

However I do think we learnt a lot. As we can see, the SSC have achieved a great deal and they are still building satellites at low cost. We did that as a warm-up for the big jump.

ESA: You were talking about a ‘cultural mafia', a kind of resistance to putting money into space that you overcame, can you name any people who helped you make a difference?

Frederik Engström

Jan Stiernstedt, Hans Håkansson and Lennart Lübeck were very influential or important at that time. Lennart Lübeck was a space fan anyway, Jan Stiernstedt became one, he hadn’t known anything but I think he thought it was fun. And I was the type that he had never met before in his life.

Hans Håkansson made things happen, he was an éminence grise, he created the Swedish nuclear programme single-handed. He once approached the Minister of Finance, who said, “Where are we going to take the money from?” The reply was, “We should tax electricity,” - 2% - and the trick was done!

I fought a lot of battles but they did the work, putting the proposals together for the Social Democrat government. When the government changed in 1976, it became in a sense easier, because there were so many crises going on in Sweden on the industrial front.

Frederik Engström

We used a lot of arguments that fitted the situation, and we did the same in 1976. Industries were collapsing, the shipyards were closing down and the new Saab aeroplane was cancelled, but we proposed Tele-X and Viking and investments in space which gave the government the opportunity to show that they were very much in favour of technology and future industrial structures.

Sidenbladh and Lübeck at the Ministry of Industry were most helpful were and later on the Minister Nils G. Åsling and Bengt Westerberg [finance] but there were even a few individuals at the Ministry of Finance who were helpful. I am referring to Bjorn Ericsson, who later became Director General of Customs and Landshövding [governor]. He was Head of Budget. Sidenbladh and I approached him and suggested we write a bill to parliament. He was the person who had the specific job of saying no to everybody. But he said yes!

The lines of communication into the government through Jan Stiernstedt and Hans Håkansson were very important. Stiernstedt was a member of the Social Democrat party and was also very close to Palme, as was Hans Håkansson. Stiernstedt was able to work by instinct. I recall sometimes talking to him, he would say nothing, yet I would be prompting him with talk of our plans. He had a manner of being very silent and that’s the way it was. I knew that the long silence meant that the idea was not a good one, but that he could not tell me why because he was not allowed to tell me why.

ESA: What about Earth observation, when did that get on the map?

Frederik Engström

Olof Johansson was Minister, at the time of the Ministerial Conference in Paris in 1977 when the French proposed SPOT. Johansson, attended virtually none of the meeting because he had other business, but read a statement (written by us) expressing full support for SPOT and that Sweden should join. He said afterwards that he was a little surprised that Sweden had been alone!

We were very much in favour of remote sensing. I don’t remember when we created the ground station for Earth observation. That was a decisive event. ESA announced that they were going to have a ground station for receiving data in a northern region, because all the orbits would be covered. I didn't have any funding. Håkansson said: "Let us take a decision at the SSC board and then announce it to the press." That is what we did. We took a decision and then issued a press release, but the press release did not explain the decision in full. The board decision was 'The Swedish Space Corporation has decided to create a satellite station in Kiruna'. The bit about the Director (me) working out the funding for it was left out.

Frederik Engström

There was fierce competition from Norway. They had money. Then we put our proposal to ESA. We had a very nice package, with the investment cost charged to ESA (the running cost was not a problem) as part of the overheads, a small one because we had fixed it for a very long time. But I recall sitting one afternoon with an ESA legal adviser who said that this was not allowed, that we could not charge the investment costs to the Agency. I was not sure what to do.

Then we came up with the idea of leasing. It was a brilliant concept. We drew up a leasing contract and leased the station and paid no investment costs. There were the financial costs of setting up the station, which was normal, but no investment costs for ESA. So we got the contract. We created a new company, Satellitbild. We put the control station for Tele-X and Spot together at Esrange, so we had Landsat, SPOT, Tele-X and Viking. We drew up a new business plan which is still going strong and now part of an international network with SSC stations all over the world that is a successful commercial operation.

ESA: How important in Swedish politics was the deal of placing this station in Sweden?

Frederik Engström

We used relevant arguments then, but I am not sure if they care about those today as the price of iron ore has gone through the roof. At the time it had not, but it was not just that, there was a clear advantage to set it up in Kiruna. Otherwise I do not think that I could have got the enthusiasm going. I do not think that it is of great economic significance.

However, to have a high-tech facility, that was not part of the mining industry, was important. Sweden is on the edge of Europe, and Kiruna is on the edge of Sweden, so it’s far away, and to set up what was, communicationwise, a worldwide activity was and is important for the local community. They have maybe only 300 employees, but for the region and the town of Kiruna it is important. It gives people in Kiruna an option other than going to the mine.

So, Kiruna Geophysical Institute and the Swedish Space Corporation were set up locally with the daughter companies. I think we were there first, and today you can see how they are bringing in data communications, Lantmäteri [landsurvey], etc.; all this is coming to Kiruna because people realise that north or south are irrelevant, the communications picture being what it is.

But we thought and argued like this very early on. We set up almost everything there with virtually no money, but, regarding the creation of the Swedish Space Corporation, if there had not been Kiruna, I do not think we would have been successful. If we had not had European investment in Northern Sweden we could not have done anything in Kiruna. Had Esrange closed down after SEK 50m being invested in it, I would have looked very bad and indeed it would have been a black mark against the government.