A telescope designed and built in Poland will fly to the orbit of the moon next year, says Oskar Zdunek from Scanway. The company is working on this instrument.
Oskar Zdunek, a business development manager at Scanway, was a guest at the EU Space Days 2025 on May 27-28 in Gdańsk. The event was organized by the European Commission under the patronage of the Polish presidency in the EU Council.
Zdunek said in an interview with PAP that the Polish space sector was undergoing a clear transformation - from the supplier of individual components to the designer and contractor of complete satellite systems. As an example, he named the largest Polish space company, Creotech, which develops satellite platforms, i.e. complete structures to which various components can be attached, such as optical instruments or on-board computers.
In his view, the expert, the defence sector shows more and more interest in the space industry. 'The European Space Agency is shifting from civil projects towards defence projects', he remarked.
JAccording to Zdunek, Scanway specializes in creating optical instruments placed on satellites, rockets and other types of spacecraft. The products of the Polish company are used, for example, for observing land, the Moon and space around ships. 'We are currently implementing a project with Intuitive Machines, the first private company that landed on the moon. Next year, we will fly with them to the orbit of the Moon with our telescope', he said.
According to Oskar Zdunek, the growing importance of Poland in the space industry is influenced by, among other things, by increasing the Polish contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA).
In 2023, the Ministry of Development and Technology decided to increase Poland's contribution to ESA for 2023-2025 by EUR 295 million. Poland is currently in seventh place in terms of the financial contribution among 22 agency member states.
Zdunek emphasised that the Polish space sector is becoming more and more recognizable in the world. In his opinion, this happens thanks to the European Space Agency and commercial orders that come to Poland from various regions of the world - including Korea, the United States, India and Kazakhstan.
'We also have a lot of space industry companies that deal with the so-called downstream. It is the use of data from satellite observations of the Earth for the needs of, for example, crisis management, as during the flood', the expert said.
Oskar Zdunek added that more and more young people were interested in the space industry: 'The Polish space sector needs more and more employees, so students are necessary for this industry to exist and grow', he concluded. (PAP)
PAP - Science in Poland
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