Artist’s rendition of satellites orbiting the Earth – rottenman/123RF Stock Photo

Last week the UK Government’s Science and Technology Committee published its report into the ‘UK Space Strategy and UK Satellite Infrastructure’.

At over ninety-pages in length, there is a lot of detail and interesting comments within the document, with the overarching headline being that the space and satellite sector is vibrant within the UK, but the Government’s approach is disjointed, unclear and lacks coherence. The full report can be found here, but, unsurprisingly, we are going to focus on the satellite Earth Observation (EO) elements of the report.

Satellite Earth Observation

The report highlights that the UK EO industry is considered to be one of the world leaders, and it is estimated to support around £100 billion in UK economic activity, equivalent to 4.7% of the country’s gross domestic product. There are over 100 EO companies within the UK, and obviously Pixalytics is one of these, which is the largest number in any country within Europe. Despite these positives, the report sets out a number of challenges and concerns for the future, including:

• Lack of sovereign satellite EO capability and support for building UK EO satellites.
• Lack of national support to deploy new EO technologies on either UK missions or internationally, meaning instead the industry focuses on scientific data, calibration and early stage technical readiness activities.
• Lack of clarity on the UK’s future role within the Copernicus programme, despite having set aside €750 million to participate. The UK’s involvement has not being confirmed, having been caught up in the ongoing disputes over implementing the Brexit arrangements. The document notes that the UK Space Sector was in favour of ongoing participating in Copernicus.

A number of opportunities for the industry were also set out, including:

• Greater work around data analytics and supporting companies who can develop innovative applications using EO data – something we would very much welcome as this is key to the Pixalytics business model.
• Developing a more UK “dedicated infrastructure for data processing” for the EO sector, rather than relying on the technology behemoths of Amazon, Google and Microsoft for data processing.
• Better utilization of EO data technology to tackle climate change and support the Net Zero ambitions of the Government.

In the conclusion and recommendations section, there were two specific paragraphs about EO; the first referencing the opportunities surrounding climate change and Net Zero activities, whilst the second focused on the Copernicus issues. Interestingly, on the second point, the Committee requested a Plan B for Copernicus document from the Government by the end of December 2022, which should set out ‘What actions the Government will take if an agreement with the European Union cannot be reached over the UK’s membership of the Copernicus programme and how the €750 million set aside for participation would be spent’.

The references here appear to in response to Rebecca Evernden, Director of Space at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, saying that continuing to participate in Copernicus was the Governments ‘Plan A’; and Dr Paul Bate, the Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, told the Committee that if the UK left Copernicus, the €750 million would be available for establishing a national EO capability.

Admittedly, this financial commitment was made before the recent economic turmoil the country’s facing. With the current need to fill a financial black hole, it will be interesting to see how strong this commitment is within Government, and so both the economic statement later this month and the Government’s response to this report will be worth watching.

Satellite Launch Capability – Spaceport Cornwall

Being only 50 miles from the first potential UK satellite launch in Newquay at Spaceport Cornwall, we were also interested to see concerns raised by the Committee over the time it is taking to issue licences for this launch. It is reported that the launch licence for Virgin Orbit’s Boeing 747 Cosmic Girl had not been received from the Civil Aviation Authority. However, information reported on Tuesday 8th November indicated that the licences would be given with days. It is unclear if this will have any impact on first launch which was planned to take place during this month’s window.

The reported noted the Committee’s disappointment that the first launch from UK soil had not yet occurred, and requested the Department for Transport prioritise working towards achieving this as soon as possible. This included ensuring that the Civil Aviation Association is sufficiently resourced to support the burgeoning satellite industry across the country.

Summary

Lots of encouragement her for the industry, which is seen as world class, but the lack of a clear government approach on a variety of issues potentially threatens the sector’s ability to maintain this level.