Slovenia became a full member of the European Space Agency (ESA) on 1 January 2025. This milestone may be seen as a joint success of the country as a whole and of Slovenia’s growing space sector, made up of innovative and pioneering companies and research institutions.
In 1928 the engineer Herman Potočnik, writing under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung, published in Berlin a book entitled The Problem of Space Travel, in which he set out his pioneering ideas about space flight and detailed his plans for a space station, which he called the Wohnrad (Living Wheel).
Today Slovenia has a flourishing space industry that has won international recognition in the fields of Earth observation, space-derived data processing (applied to sectors ranging from agriculture to rescue operations and transport), control and measurement systems, advanced materials suitable for extreme space environments, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics, ground station equipment, micro cooling systems, new solutions in miniaturisation, microgravity facilities, astronaut health monitoring systems, and micro- and nanosatellites. Slovenia’s first two satellites, Nemo HD and TriSat, were launched into low Earth orbit in 2020. Two years later they were joined by a third satellite, launched into medium Earth orbit.
Slovenian Space Office
Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport
