The Polish Space Agency (POLSA) is in talks with NASA about future cooperation, including jointly building devices and instruments for space missions, primarily regarding space exploration.
POLSA currently cooperates with NASA either based on concluded bilateral agreements, usually as a subcontractor of a European partner (such as the German space agency DLR), or within the European Space Agency (ESA), of which Poland has been a member since 2012.
The ESA runs a number of joint programmes with NASA, in which 'Polish entities are strongly involved'.
Bukała said: “The flagship example is the European Exploration Envelope Program (E3P), which involves extensive cooperation with other space agencies, including NASA, in the field of space exploration - mainly manned missions, ISS, Lunar Gateway, Moon, Mars.”
She added that Polish companies' involvement in joint projects with NASA has to so far included detectors from Vigo System S.A. from Ożarów, which are on board the Mars rover Curiosity (2011).
Another company, Astronika, is responsible for one of the three main instruments on board the American InSight probe (2018), known as Kret HP3, Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, which Bukała says is “a penetrating probe in the form of a cylinder, used to measure the heat flux from the inside of the planet.”
She added that in the Mars Sample Return mission, PIAP Space sp.z o.o. made the components of robots that will be used to collect this sample and bring it back to Earth.
PAP - Science in Poland, Magdalena Jarco
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