Kolbjorn Blix Dahle
Head of Marketing Department, Andøya Rocket Range
Kolbjørn Blix Dahle is a former Officer in the Royal Norwegian Airforce. After 20 years working with fixed wing and helicopters he took the job as technical manager at the ALOMAR Observatory, Andøya, Norway in 2001. In 2007 he took the position as Head of Marketing at Andøya Rocket Range (ARR). From 2010 to 2011 he was Director of the UAS company ARANICA, partly owned by ARR. Kolbjørn is married to Lill and they have 6 children, ranging from 23 to 5.
Abstract
2012 marks the beginning of the Norwegian space adventure, with the launch of the first sounding rocket, Ferdinand I, from Andøya Rocket Range August 18th, 1962. Since then, Norwegian space activity has grown, both at home and internationally. There have been large benefits for industry, for research and development, as well as society in general. Norwegian space activity is now represented on all continents, and is a large export industry. This national event will be celebrated at Andøya Rocket Range where a number of national and international guests will be invited. In its 50th year, Andøya Rocket Range and the Norwegian sounding rocket community is once again a rising star. After years of recess and declining funding for sounding rocket missions, two new projects were given “good to go” in December 2011 by the Norwegian Space Centre and the Norwegian Research Council.
ICI-4 will be the fourth sounding rocket project lead by Professor Jøran Moen from the University of Oslo. The two-stage rocket will be launched from Ny-Ålesund at Svalbard, late 2013. The single-stage MAXIDUSTY I will mark the re-entry of Tromsø University into the sounding rocket community. Launch will take place from Andøya during the summer of 2013. Both will be based on the Hotel Payload concept from Andøya Rocket Range, and they will be built, integrated and tested on-site at ARR. ARR is also working together with the Norwegian company NAMMO and the Norwegian Space Centre to investigate the possibility of establishing Andøya Rocket Range as a future mainland European launch site for small satellites. This will be a service dedicated to low, polar SSO satellites with a maximum height of 600km. The on-going investigations have payload weights of 10-40 kg as their main focus; rail launched using our proposed hybrid North Star Launch Vehicle and existing infrastructure at Andøya. First launch might take place in 2017.
Norway also has a well-functioning student satellite program – lead by Andøya Rocket Range. As we speak, three CubeSats are currently being worked at. The one closest to launch is the HiNCube made by Narvik University College. At the University of Oslo they are working at their 2U space weather demonstrator – CubeSTAR and in Trondheim, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) their 2U CubeSat NUTS is taking shape.