LONDON—The UK government is preparing to publish its Space Sector Plan in early 2024, laying out its national space capabilities ambitions.
The document, which will build on London’s previously published National Space and Defense Space Strategies, is set to provide more detail on how the government aims to implement those strategies. The original National Space Strategy, published in September 2021, highlighted five key goals:
•Growth of the national space economy.
•Support for space research and innovation.
•Promoting the responsible use of space.
•Protecting national interests through the defense use of space.
•Using space-based systems to tackle domestic and international challenges such as climate change.
In particular, the plan will set out “five or six areas where we will try and have a national ambition for [space] capabilities,” Mark Bacon, deputy director of programs for direct investment and sector policy in the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, tells the Defense Space conference, held Dec. 12.
With the ambitions outlined, the aims are to “coordinate all the different levers [available] across government” to ensure they [the key areas] can be made “genuinely dual use,” Bacon says.
The original strategy was criticized for calling on the UK to lean heavily on private investment. The updated plan is expected to propose initiatives that are geared to bring more small and medium-size enterprises into the UK’s space supply chain in a bid not only to make it grow, but also become more resilient.
Through these strategies and the plan, “government’s thinking continues to evolve,” says Joshua Broom, the head of space in the UK Department for Business and Trade, speaking at the same event. “We are now at that stage where not only are we acknowledging what we need to do, but we also want to be much clearer in terms of what we want industry to do with us.”
Space launch also continues to be a government commitment, Bacon says, despite the failure of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne flight from Spaceport Cornwall last January.
“We have proven that we can operate launches from the UK, and we are trying to understand how we can really stimulate that market,” Bacon adds.
The next launch from the UK is expected at the end of 2024 from Scotland, likely a vertical launch from either the SaxaVord or Sutherland spaceports.
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