Nikos Pappas, Greece's Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media, is serious about going into space.

"Greece is one of the few European countries that was lacking a space agency," he said in a recent interview. "The Greek space agency will coordinate public and private institutions in order to make best use of the country's capabilities in the sector of space and satellite applications."

The launch of the space agency is part of the Greek government's drive to stem the country's brain drain. Since the start of the crisis in 2008, Greece's Central Bank estimates around 427,000 educated Greeks have left the country. The new agency will "create numerous new jobs, offering opportunities to Greek scientists to either stay or come back to the country," said Pappas.

Previously an economic researcher in Strathclyde, Scotland, Pappas joined the Greek government in January 2015, and became telecoms minister in November. In January, he presented a draft bill for the creation of National Centre for Space Applications.

The Greek government will not own any satellites. Hellas Sat 3, built by UK firm Inmarsat and Greece's Hellas Sat Consortium, is currently under construction in Cannes, France, and is set to be put into orbit from French Guiana on June 28.

"In early summer, the launching of Hellas Sat 3, the new satellite that will take its place on the Greek orbital position, will significantly broaden the Greek capacity to host satellite applications, both for the public and the private sector," said Pappas.

It is not the first time Greece has attempted to conquer space in the era of the bailouts. In 2013, the Defense Minister of Antonis Samaras's government, Fofi Gennimata, announced the government's intention to set up a space missile launch base in Kalamata, southern Greece.

Pappas is hoping that Greece's nascent space agency can aid the country's security and agriculture industries, as well as helping to prevent floods and wildfires.