Asturian space scientist sees growth potential in region's industrial heritage

Tirso Velasco has spent his career chasing light from the edges of the solar system. The Oviedo-born space projects director began in 2002 with Integral, a satellite designed to observe high-energy X-rays and gamma radiation, a mission that ran for more than two decades. From there, his work expanded across the European Space Agency's most ambitious undertakings—Bepi Colombo, now gathering data from Mercury; Solar Orbiter, launched in 2020 to study the sun; and Euclide, probing the structure of the universe itself. But it was Mars that became his proving ground.

Velasco participated in all three major surface missions to the red planet. With Curiosity, which has now spent over a decade exploring the Martian landscape, he developed REMS, a meteorological station that continues transmitting data. Insight followed, a stationary platform that operated from 2016 until 2023. Then came Perseverance, an environmental monitoring station equipped with sensors to characterize the Martian atmosphere—a project developed entirely in Spain. Each mission built on the last, each one a step deeper into understanding another world.

Now his attention has turned to something closer to home, though no less complex. The SMILE mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and China's space program, aims to measure how solar wind—the stream of particles flowing from the sun—interacts with Earth's magnetosphere, the invisible magnetic field that surrounds our planet. When these particles collide with that field, they create phenomena most people recognize as the northern lights. But the interaction affects far more than the sky's beauty; it can disrupt telecommunications and damage satellites. What makes SMILE unprecedented is its approach: observing this interaction in X-rays, a wavelength never before studied from space.

The geopolitical landscape shaped the mission's technical reality in ways that forced innovation. American components typically dominate space hardware, but with China as a partner, restrictions tightened. Velasco's team made a deliberate choice: abandon U.S. technology and develop new components and systems within Europe instead. The decision multiplied the difficulty, increased costs, and extended timelines. But it created something else—genuine European technological independence, systems that will be available for future missions, a foundation built on European ingenuity rather than imported parts.

Space exploration has always occupied an unusual position in geopolitics. During the Cold War's darkest hours, Soviet and American spacecraft docked in orbit. The International Space Station became a symbol of what nations could achieve together, winning the Prince of Asturias Award in 2001. Yet the current moment reveals the limits of that cooperation. A Spanish satellite scheduled to launch on a Russian rocket was abandoned when Russia invaded Crimea. The Exomar mission, a joint European-Russian rover project, was scrapped after the invasion of Ukraine. The sector that once led by example now finds itself constrained by the same forces that constrain everything else.

Velasco sees space investment as fundamentally different from other government spending. It cannot operate on short cycles. SMILE began in 2019; more complex missions require ten or fifteen years of development. Commitment must be sustained or the entire enterprise collapses. The knowledge gained—understanding solar storms, preventing technological failures, mapping the universe—justifies the cost. But so do the practical applications that emerged almost accidentally: GPS, weather prediction satellites, Earth observation tools that people now use without thinking about their origins in space programs.

Asturias, the region where Velasco was born and trained, represents an untapped possibility. The region built its industrial reputation on metalworking and mining, sectors that created skilled workforces and manufacturing expertise. Yet aerospace and space industries barely exist there. Madrid concentrates Spain's aerospace companies; other regions have developed their own clusters. Velasco knows excellent engineers trained at the University of Oviedo who migrated elsewhere to find work in space and aviation. The university could deepen its specialization, but without an industrial base to absorb graduates, education alone cannot anchor talent. What Asturias needs is what it once had: a reason for skilled people to stay.

This summer, a total solar eclipse will cross the center of Asturias—a rare alignment that offers more than spectacle. It is an opportunity to remind people why this work matters, why sustained investment in understanding the cosmos connects to the everyday technologies that structure modern life. Velasco encourages people to witness it, though he admits he has never seen a total eclipse himself. The phenomenon itself is remarkable. But the real opportunity lies in what it can teach: that science, pursued with patience and resources, reveals truths about our world and our place within it.