Five innovative organisations have won a share of £1 million to develop technologies that enhance the UK’s ability to safely operate in space
The funding – announced today at the Farnborough International Airshow - has been allocated to projects that improve intelligence gathering, threat assessments, and enhance the monitoring of spacecraft.
Space to Innovate Campaign - Bravo was launched in September 2021, and sought to find innovations that maintain the UK’s freedom to operate in the space domain by developing future space technologies that enhance and protect military and civilian activity.
The winning organisations include:
Space-based services and satellites are vital to modern life, enabling a range of civilian and military activities such as global communications, secure navigation, banking transactions and transport. Any form of disturbance to UK space capabilities, whether natural or intentional, can have a huge effect on these critical services and the UK economy as a result.
Air-Vice Marshal Paul Godfrey, Commander of UK Space Command, said:
The Space to Innovate Campaign aims to find and fund solutions to major space hurdles to promote space resilience and operational effectiveness. Funded through Space to Innovate Campaign – Bravo Drop, the campaign is a joint collaboration between the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) UK Space Agency and Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA).
Dr Mike O’Callaghan, Dstl Space Programme Manager, said:
Organisations were invited to submit their innovative technologies and solutions to help overcome two key challenges:
The winners now have up to 20 months to complete their projects and deliver the results.
The Space to Innovate Campaign – Alpha Drop aimed to identify visualisation tools to enable space operators to exploit information gathered from multiple data sources, and novel methods for characterising objects in space and their intent.