Founded in 963, Luxembourg became a grand duchy in 1815 and a constituent part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands after the Congress of Vienna. When Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1839, Luxembourg lost more than half of its territory to Belgium but gained a larger measure of autonomy within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Luxembourg gained full independence in 1867 by promising to remain permanently neutral. Overrun by Germany in both world wars, its neutrality ended in 1948 when it entered into the Benelux Customs Union and joined NATO the following year. In 1957, Luxembourg became one of the six founding countries of the EEC (later the EU), and in 1999 it joined the euro currency zone.

The Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA; established 2018) (2025)

Luxembourg Space Agency was established in 2018 to develop space policy, encourage and coordinate commercial space ventures, support space education, and promote the country’s space-related capabilities internationally; has a national space strategy; has set up policy and funding initiatives (such as LuxIMPULSE) to encourage research, development, innovation, and entrepreneurship and attract space-based industries; focuses on developing commercial satellites and infrastructure, as well as other capabilities and technologies; hosts some of the largest commercial satellite companies in the world; member of the ESA since 2005 and participates in a variety of ESA programs; cooperates bilaterally with individual ESA and EU member states; also works with other foreign space agencies and industries, including those of Canada, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the UAE, and the US (2025)