UKspace report: Securing Our Future in Space

3 Dec 2020 03:02 PM

A new report commissioned by UKspace shows £270 billion of UK economic output is now dependent on data from non-UK satellites. Entitled ‘Securing Our Future in Space’, the publication sets out three actions to secure the UK’s future in space.

The policy action UKspace proposes to secure the UK's future in space:

• The Government must commit to increasing space funding from all current sources, including through the European Space Agency (ESA), which is not linked to the European Union and serves as an excellent platform upon which to drive development of sovereign capability, global collaborations and international trade.
• As well as investing in key international partnerships such as ESA, the UK should focus on expanding our sovereign space capabilities. This will build economic and security resilience, as well as allow UK industry to capture more global market share for UK job creation. To achieve this, UKspace proposes three simple actions:
  1. Set the Space Innovation Fund at £150m per year, sustained over 10 years. This, it is argued, will bring new advances in technology, research and science to commercially viable projects and thus create value for the UK.
  2. Create a National Procurement Fund of £250m per year, sustained over 10 years, for the specific procurement by Government of UK products and services. This would help grow the UK's domestic space sector, enabling UK space products and services to play a much bigger role in trading with the rest of the world.
  3. Establish a Space Delivery Agency to drive the programme of complex, hi-tech initiatives forward. Such an agency would be accountable to the National Space Council with a focus on delivery. This would complement the UK Space Agency’s key roles of policy, relations with international space agencies, and regulatory aspects which are best developed from within government by government.

You can read the full report here.