Sven Grahn (b 1946) has been called Sweden's Mr Space or Herr Rymd (someone
also jokingly called him Wernher von Grahn...) since he's been involved in
everything connected to space research over here. A few years ago he wrote his
space memoirs, Jordnära rymd - min rymdhistoria ("Near Earth Space - My Space
History", Instant Books 2011, 466 pages).
Grahn has mainly been active in Rymdbolaget, the Swedish Space Corporation
(which is now the official name), a government operation responsible for eg
building Swedish satellites.
Grahn's book is a massive volume in A4 size, which tells everything about
Swedish space history from around 1950 up to recently. The book is full of
personal recollections, anecdotes, technical details, illustrations, diagrams,
tables, but easy enough if you have your high school physics reasonably fresh.
If you're interested in space you should read it! Parts of it reads almost like
a detective novel, for instance when we can follow how Grahn and his team tries
to overcome glitches with a satellite.
You of course need to know Swedish, and if you don't I'll here go through
some of the contents for you. (But note URL:s last with plenty of stuff in
English!)
Grahn got bitten by the space bug early on. He built small rockets in his
school's carpentry workshop. In 1959 at age 13 he became the probably youngest
member of the Swedish Interplanetary Society, founded already in 1950. He went
to the International Astronautical Congress in 1960 arranged at the Royal
Technical Institute in Stockholm and met everyone that counts. Wernher von
Braun was there, Hermann Oberth, Robert Goddard's widow, Russian Sputnik
technicians.
Later Nobelist Hannes Alfven contacted the Americans in 1959 and asked if
they would sell them some high altitude rockets - which they did! The Swedes
were offered five Arcas rockets and training in how to use them. It was decided
to research bright high altitude night clouds. The first rockets were fired
from a place called Nausta in northern Sweden in 1961 and the experiments were
the next year moved to Kronogård, also up north. As Grahn had been toying with
his own rockets he was offered to become a junior assistant for the Kronogård
experiments. They used so called sounding rockets which go up 100 km or more
and then come down, doing experiments and observations during the short trip.
In 1964 one Yuri Gagarin toured Sweden. Grahn was there but his camera broke
down after just one picture on rally with him. It was a Russian camera... Grahn
had at the same time begun his studies for a civil engineer degree at the Royal
Technical Institute. Another thing he did was to listen to satellites. All
satellites transmit something, even if it's only beep-beep as for Sputnik 1.
Grahn bought the relevant radio amateur equipment (some advanced stuff as US
surplus, through friends in the States) and sat there through the nights
listening, recording signals and trying to draw conclusions from variations in
the signals. Grahn seems to have been into satellite-listening throughout his
entire space career.
When he listened to the first manned Soviet spaceships he found that certain
signals meant there were two on board, others that there were three cosmonauts.
He tracked Soviet spy satellites, some nuclear powered - they needed much
energy since they had an on board radar.This radar tracked US carrier groups
and the radar satellites went in pairs so they could get two "snapshots" of the
carriers to calculate where they were heading. A couple of these radar
satellites malfunctioned, and Grahn was consulted by the Swedish government as
expert, to find out where they would crash. They were concerned that the
dangerous nuclear material would fall on Sweden. And as he was in the States to
watch the last Apollo launch, no 17, he and his friends set up a 9 m parabolic
antenna (surplus stuff) and listened in on the communications.
In his space "eavesdropping" he's had good help by an international group of
space listeners, lead from Britain and called the Kettering group after the
town. (Incidentally several of the early science fiction Eastercons were held
in Kettering.)
He writes a lot about the early Soviet and US space programs. When president
Kennedy said "we choose to go to the Moon, and do the other things..." the
Russians didn't think he was serious. They were first with Sputnik and Gagarin,
but when it came to aim for the Moon they were late and half-hearted. (Everyone
knows, however, that America could have beaten Sputnik, if they'd only given
the job to von Braun.) The Soviet central planned economy suffered from
internal quarrels between different rocket design groups, while the free market
of the US adopted almost a central planned economy that worked very smoothly.
When the Russians finally realised that Kennedy had meant what he said, they
were far behind and had launch disasters with the big rockets they would need.
They had hoped to send Soyuz around the Moon and beat Apollo to it, but their
big rockets just exploded.
He talks about the space stations, where the Russians were in the lead, with
the series Salyt 1 to 7 and finally Mir. But Salyt 1 was a failure - they
couldn't even dock with it because a technical glitch. Grahn reveals that two
of the Salyts were of a different design and purely military, sort of giant
manned spy satellites. He knew that from his radio listening analyses.
A huge part of the book covers the development of the this far seven Swedish
research satellites. (Though they have been launched by the Russians, ESA, the
Chinese and the Americans usually as a "piggy back" to a bigger commercial
satellite.) The Swedish space community began to consider the first satellite
project already in the 1960's, thinking of doing an electronic mail satellite
to connect Swedish embassies. (Orbiting Earth, picking up messages,storing them
and delivering when it came to the right position).
It proved to ambitious to get it up in the 1970's. The cooperation with the
contractor SAAB Space was sometimes a problem - they were to deliver the
satellite chassis, but always wanted too much pay and more control over the
project.
Finding a launch vehicle wasn't easy either. The Swedish Space Corporation
would simply look around and book the cheapest but still reliable launch
provider. The first project was changed to research the Aurora Borealis, it
was named Viking and finally launched in 1986. They didn't care that the
Americans had already used the name "Viking" (the 1970's Mars probes), because
the Swedes were the *original* vikings... Viking is calculated to remain in
Orbit for at least 100 000 years. There was a documentary film made about
Viking: Approaching ZERO.000 - the happy engineers.
(Note: I was at the time active in the Swedish Space Movement organisation
and we were invited to witness the launch by TV link from French Guiana in the
Space Corporation headquarters. Just before this, in1985, we also had the
second IAF Congress to be held in Stockholm, which I also attended.)
The Swedish research satellites this far have been: Viking (1986), Freja
(1992), Astrid-1 (1995), Astrid-2 (1998), Munin (2000), Odin (2001), SMART-1
(2003), Prisma (2010).
Most have names from Nordic mythology, but the two Astrids - micro satellites
of about 30 kg - were named after author Astrid Lindgren, since the
instruments in them happened to get names from here books, abbreviations like
PIPPI and EMIL. So they asked if they could use her name. She replied:
"Nice to hear about the satellite Astrid. I'd like to tell you that I since
many years have planet /she probably means an asteroid/ that the Russians named
Astrid, and I think that too floats around somewhere above the Arctic Sea. The
scientists may call their instruments Pippi, Emil, etc. Give my greetings. I'll
probably rise to the sky myself soon."
SMART-1 was an interesting project. It was commissioned by ESA to test a new
ion drive,, using solar cells giving electricity to accelerate xenon gas. By
creating a small but steady push the vehicle got an ever increasing orbit,
until it was caught by the Moon. In lunar orbit different instruments studied
for instance the composition of the Moon's minerals. And when the mission was
completed, the satellite was directed to a planned crash with the lunar
surface. SMART-1 required BTW, 100 000 pages (!) of documentation. The Space
Corporation needed a small truck to deliver the half ton it constituted.
Sweden has also commissioned five communications (TV) satellites, built to
specifications by foreign contractors but operated by the Swedish Space
Corporation. The Swedish Telecom Agency (as it was then, now partly privatised
and named Telia) weren't happy about this. They had a monopoly by law on all
telecommunications and saw TV satellites as infringement (the monopoly wasn't
lifted until the early 1990's). Grahn describes some of the clashes resulting.
The Telecom Agency for instance commissioned opinion pieces in the papers,
claiming that TV satellites were unpractical since they'd require strengthening
the roofs of houses for the parabolic antennas. Ridiculous, according to Grahn.
We get an absurd anecdote about the first tele satellite Tele-X. While in
America in satellite businesses Grahn and a co-worker were approached by two
men who identified themselves as from the CIA. During a fancy dinner as the
supposed CIA men got more and more drunk they learnt that they wanted the new
Swedish satellite to have equipment to monitor the border between Sweden and
the USSR. Grahn of course notes that it would be a very bad idea. You use Low
Earth Orbit satellites for surveillance not a telecom one in geostationary
orbit 36 000 km away.
The Swedish Space Corporation developed their own efficient style for the
satellite projects. They had small informal groups where each one had their
task, but everyone could also chip in and help others who had run into trouble.
They'd shop for the cheapest stuff that would work, but test it rigorously.
Once they bought a battery on a local gas station... Grahn talks about the
design considerations and the testing: vacuum chamber, simulated sunlight,
shaking test, testing resilience to extreme sound, temperatures.
He has many interesting anecdotes from the launches. A team from the Space
Corporation would arrive to the site weeks ahead. He tells for instance about
the long stay in the Gobi desert of inner China, for the launch of Freja. The
Swedes complained that there was no hot water at night to shower, in the
luxurious suites the Swedish delegation got (the Chinese wanted to impress, to
promote further business). The next day there was hot water. Later they learnt
that the town only had one water-heating plant, so this meant that the entire
town now had hot water all day around.
And once in Russia when they arrived with their satellite, they learned that
they must pay a "customs fee", on the spot, at the airfield and in US dollar.
The fee was 1500 dollars, and it's doubtful that the money reached further than
the pocket of the high official who collected the "fee". (The boss of that
facility was later charged with corruption, a vigilancfe I believe is rarer
today in Putin's Russia.)
Grahn was in the committee which selected Sweden's first astronaut candidate.
ESA had decided to get their own spacemen, and each member country would be
able to suggest up to five candidates. The advert about it was in Swedish
papers the 21st of June 1990. Around 300 Swedes applied. The selection
committee decided that priority No 1 was to get a Swede into space. No gender
quotas, no political correctness counted, just select one ESA will take - "it
was refreshing!" Grahn comments. They finally choose one Christer Fuglesang
with a PhD in physics, who unfortunately had to wait over a decade before his
turn came (the Columbia disaster, among other things, caused delays), but on
the other hand Christer has been up there twice.
(Note: I have met him. I gave him my short story collection Murder on the
Moon, and received very kind comments afterwards: "great enjoyment....very good
stories in a very probable space environment!".)
Grahn finishes his engaging book with some general thoughts about future
space activities.He doesn't see future launch costs to go down very much. He's
positive towards sub-orbital space tourism. He sees science, communication,
international cooperation and things like that as important, but I'm a bit
disappointed he doesn't give us some bigger visions. He says nothing about
future Mars expeditions or terraforming that planet. Nothing about Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Nothing about the successful hunt for
extra-terrestrial planets. But after all, he's more of a space engineer than an
astronomer.
The Swedish government today spends ca SEK1.7 Billion (about USD200 million)
a year on space, of which abut half goes to ESA. A recent report indicates that
space activities will be beefed up. Esrange, which recently celebrated its 50th
anniversary, will be expanded - maybe with satellite launching capabilities by
2020. We're speaking of small polar orbit satellites in that case for which
the geographical location is favourable. It would be the first satellites
launched from Europe outside Russia.
The Swedish Space Corporation had a slogan: Space is the Place. I agree.
--Ahrvid Engholm
From Sven Grahn's web site, 70+ articles (all in ENGLISH) on space history,
many on the same topics as his book:
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/histind1.htm
List of Swedish satellites (In Swedish,but you can decode info from the
numbers):
http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Swefirst/svenskasat.html
The History of the Swedish Space Corporation (ENGLISH):
https://www.zenker.se/Space/Jubilee/jubilee-a.shtml
¨
The history of the Swedish Interplanetry Society, as written in 1958 (in
Swedish but try Google Translate):
http://www.zenker.se/Space/sis_hjertstrand.shtml
A Short History of Swedish Space Activities, from ESA (ENGLISH):
http://www.esa.int/esapub/hsr/HSR_39.pdf
Homepage for the Swedish Space Corporation (ENGLISH):
http://www.sscspace.com/
The Lapland "space base" Esrange (ENGLISH)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Youtube channel for the Swedish Space Corporation (much in ENGLISH):
https://www.youtube.com/user/SwedishSpace
Short film about the high altitude rockets from Kronogård in the early 60's
(ENGLISH):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8n5YQOVbqU
Short 1960's animated film about rockets from Esrange (ENGLISH):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp1_pYaed6M
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