UK Government Space Agency Awards UKP20 million For Aerial Connectivity

UK Sec­re­tary of State for Sci­ence, Inno­va­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy, Chloe Smith, announced this week a UKP20 mil­lion fund­ing from the UK Space Agency (the biggest invest­ment into these types of ser­vices to date), to sup­port the devel­op­ment of future telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies and aer­i­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty projects, for onboard drones and/or high-alti­tude plat­forms to pro­vide wire­less cov­er­age, reports a press release.

Com­pa­nies can bid for the fund­ing that will sup­port a range of indus­tries includ­ing med­ical drone deliv­ery to hos­pi­tals, pro­vid­ing ded­i­cat­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty for emer­gency ser­vices, and bring­ing inter­net access to rur­al areas.

The Tech­nol­o­gy Sec­re­tary unveiled the sup­port dur­ing a speech at the open­ing of the Euro­pean Space Agency’s (ESA) state-of-the-art new con­fer­ence cen­tre at the Har­well Space Clus­ter, in Oxford­shire, which is home to over 100 space organ­i­sa­tions employ­ing more than 1,400 peo­ple.

Smith, com­ment­ed, “From using drones to quick­ly get med­i­cines to hos­pi­tals, through to boost­ing mobile net­work access in remote areas, the ben­e­fits of aer­i­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty cut through many aspects of our lives. The Government’s UKP20 mil­lion invest­ment will fur­ther strength­en the UK’s fast-grow­ing satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­try, which already con­tributes more than UKP10 bil­lion to our econ­o­my and sup­ports over 26,000 jobs. It will improve our health and secu­ri­ty, too, and sup­port our plan to lev­el up every part of the UK.”

ESA New Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in Oxford­shire (graph­ic image)

Indus­try can sub­mit appli­ca­tions under three themes:-

: Drones

: High-Alti­tude Plat­form Sta­tions (HAPS)

: High-Alti­tude Long Endurance (HALE)

Sub­mit appli­ca­tions HERE

Project Sug­ges­tions

: Devel­op­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty for aer­i­al plat­forms with hybrid capa­bil­i­ties that can seam­less­ly switch between satel­lite and ter­res­tri­al net­works.

: Traf­fic man­age­ment for inno­v­a­tive vehi­cles such as elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft.

: Fly­ing Taxis.

The fund­ing is a part of ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices (ARTES) pro­gram. Future telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions is one of five crit­i­cal tech­nolo­gies iden­ti­fied by the gov­ern­ment in the UK Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Frame­work, and the UK is a lead­ing investor in ARTES, hav­ing com­mit­ted UKP190 mil­lion to the pro­gram in Novem­ber 2022.

The release says, “The announce­ment came at the open­ing of a new con­fer­ence cen­tre at the Euro­pean Cen­tre for Space Appli­ca­tions and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions (ECSAT), named after for­mer ESA direc­tor and head of ECSAT, Mag­a­li Vaissiere. The facil­i­ty will serve as a ral­ly­ing point for the UK space com­mu­ni­ty, rein­forc­ing exist­ing ties and fos­ter­ing new part­ner­ships with­in Europe and beyond. The UK Space Agency con­tributed UKP7 mil­lion to the project.”

Dr Paul Bate, Chief Exec­u­tive of the UK Space Agency, remarked, “The new state-of-the art con­fer­ence cen­tre at ECSAT is a very wel­come addi­tion to the world-class sci­ence cam­pus at Har­well, offer­ing an attrac­tive base for col­lab­o­ra­tion and net­work­ing between peo­ple work­ing in the space sec­tor and beyond. UK Space Agency fund­ing for the facil­i­ty demon­strates our ongo­ing com­mit­ment to work­ing close­ly with the Euro­pean Space Agency to catal­yse invest­ment, deliv­er new mis­sions and capa­bil­i­ties, and cham­pi­on space across the UK – show­ing once again that space is a team sport.”

The release con­tin­ues, “Har­well cam­pus is a key enabler of the boom­ing UK space indus­try and the con­fer­ence cen­tre adds to ESA’s exist­ing con­tri­bu­tions to this rapid­ly expand­ing com­mu­ni­ty of com­mer­cial, pub­lic and aca­d­e­m­ic enter­pris­es. The facil­i­ty will boost inno­va­tion on cam­pus by pro­mot­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between its health, quan­tum, ener­gy and space clus­ters.”

Josef Aschbach­er, ESA Direc­tor Gen­er­al, said, “The UK has a strong track record for inno­va­tion in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and we are proud to work with our UK part­ners to devel­op inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies that will sup­port indus­tries across the econ­o­my by boost­ing aer­i­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty. This activ­i­ty demon­strates the excel­lent coop­er­a­tion between the UK and ESA, and is a great exam­ple of how the seam­less con­nec­tiv­i­ty deliv­ered by space-enabled 5G is set to trans­form soci­ety and indus­try.”

The fund­ing announced this week is in addi­tion to the UKP50 mil­lion ARTES fund­ing announced in Jan­u­ary to back a wide range of projects, such as devel­op­ing new satel­lite con­stel­la­tions, the ground sys­tems need­ed to access them, or whole end-to-end sys­tems deliv­er­ing new ser­vices to cus­tomers.

Chris McLaugh­lin, Sec­re­tary of the HAPS Alliance, explained, “High-alti­tude plat­form sta­tions have the poten­tial to enhance con­nec­tiv­i­ty in remote areas and aid emer­gency ser­vices in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. The HAPS Alliance applauds the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive aer­i­al ser­vices and tech­nolo­gies, such as HAPS-ded­i­cat­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty for emer­gency response.”

The invest­ment under­scores the industry’s com­mit­ment to future telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and rein­forces part­ner­ships with­in the space com­mu­ni­ty, dri­ving trans­for­ma­tive advance­ments in aer­i­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.gov.uk/government