The UK Space Agency<\/b> is investing 47 million pounds ($59 million) across 12 space projects, the government announced Nov. 22. The investment will be doubled by matched funding from the private sector, representing over 98 million pounds ($122 million) of new funds in space research and development. <\/p>\n
The funding comes from the Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund (SCIF), which focuses on building and connecting clusters of space capabilities in the U.K. to encourage space tech innovation. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur space sector has been concentrated in London and the South East, but in recent years we\u2019ve seen the emergence of vibrant clusters across the whole of the country,\u201d commented UKSA Chief Executive Dr. Paul Bate. \u201cThe Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund highlights the government\u2019s commitment to space and will help deliver the goal set out in the National Space Strategy to build\u202fone of the most\u202finnovative and\u202fattractive space\u202feconomies\u202fin the\u202fworld, developing new skills and creating jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n
Northumbria University\u2019s North-East Space Skills and Technology (NESST) Centre will receive the largest portion of the funding, 10 million pounds ($12.5 million), to redevelop a university site for work on optical satellite comms, space weather and space-based energy. <\/p>\n
Space Forge will receive 7.9 million pounds ($9.8 million) to design and build a National Microgravity Research Centre in Wales that will serve as a hub for the growing Welsh space sector. <\/p>\n
Thales Alenia Space will receive 6 million pounds ($7.5 million) to install a cleanroom and three R&D laboratories for satellite manufacturing in Harwell. <\/p>\n
Other funds will go to Magdrive, Smiths Interconnect, Airbus Defence and Space, iComat, URA Thrusters, Open Cosmos, Snowdonia Aerospace, Radtest, and the Centre for Modelling and Simulation. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese projects demonstrate the potential of our thriving space sector across the length and breadth of the U.K. to develop innovative space infrastructure that helps us to deliver increasingly ambitious missions and capabilities, and champions the power of space to improve lives,\u201d Bates commented. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK Space Agency is investing 47 million pounds ($59 million) across 12 space projects, the government announced Nov. 22. The investment will be doubled by matched funding from the private sector, representing over 98 million pounds ($122 million) of new funds in space research and development. The funding comes from the Space Clusters Infrastructure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}