Forewords
I highly commend ‘Better space’ as a thought-provoking analysis of the United Kingdom’s (UK) space to date, with cogent ideas on how we might change that approach in the future. Gabriel is a passionate advocate for the UK’s place in space, and generates a sometimes controversial debate, which may not please all. Nonetheless, there are some strikingly well-made observations.
While it is true that we have an excellent science base, an innovative ecosystem and a forward-leaning regulatory environment, we need mature national space infrastructure alongside this. We must recognise that every citizen in the UK already relies on space for their everyday lives. Space underpins 16% of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a day without space would cost our economy £1.2 billion and without the ability to connect, warn, guide and inform military decisions we could instantly lose operational advantage and the freedom of action to conduct military operations to protect and defend our nation.
In this context, the identification that we need to pull forward our prioritisation and delivery of national capability is excellent. We must identify what we need for the UK, by the UK, and bring this to our international partnerships, so we can be a valued and meaningful partner for our key allies. We’ve been showing up rather empty-handed too often, in both civil and defence relationships.
We have good people working in government on space programmes, but the lack of coherence in supply and demand, in civil and defence activities, stymies success. We have an opportunity to work in a strategic partnership with the new government to set a new direction for the UK space sector. We need to consolidate our efforts in public-funded R&D and have that ten-year funding horizon to encourage investment and build capability on the supply side.
Crucially, we need to cohere government requirements, and give a single body the heft to take decisions to pull through procurement of national space capabilities if we want to be a meaningful actor in space.
And we should, otherwise we will all be poorer without it; our dependence on space is growing, it’s where our future should lie, and the opportunity is now.
–Dr Alice Bunn OBE
President, UKSpace (2022-)
Chief Executive Officer, Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2021-)
International Director, UK Space Agency (2018-2021)
A long time ago in a ministry far, far away, I held the Space Portfolio. It dawned on me then that the sector was becoming significant, so we commissioned the first strategic review, published in 1997. At Farnborough in 1994, I had remarked:
One of my tasks as a minister is to persuade people how relevant the activities and work in space are to them. It is so often forgotten how many things that we now take for granted are space related…Making the public aware of what we are doing is a very important stage in under-pinning our space effort.
Fast forward to today, the enormous growth of UK based space sector activities and ESA and wider collaboration is hugely impressive and a tribute to those involved. Yet, successive governments have still not managed to create a coherent, integrated decision-making body for civil and military space priorities and delivery to do justice to what, since 2015, has become a Critical National Infrastructure.
This timely study proposes ways in which the new government can grip the problem and I welcome suggestions which may stimulate urgent discussion. Mission-driven industrial policy is back in favour. If priorities are more clearly focused and set with implementation made more speedily and efficiently, it can boost industry confidence, generate co-financing, and increase space foreign direct investment.
The author states ‘The central problem in UK space affairs is organisation – not money.’ Any minister would argue fiercely that in view of the overarching role diverse space assets and services play in preserving our daily life, plus competition from other countries and the current threatening behaviour of Russia especially, funding increases are needed.
Yet, better organisation is essential and this government must rise to the perennial challenge of overcoming cross-departmental silos more effectively than recent attempts. Having seen the way it makes an impact on visits to Toulouse, I understand the suggestion that emulating the French Centre National D’études Spatiales (CNES) organisation, which is solely responsible for safeguarding and advancing France’s national space interests as a whole, is worthy of serious consideration.
This Policy Paper makes some wide-ranging, detailed and well-argued points for urgent consideration and I welcome its publication.
Ian Taylor
Minister for Science, Technology and Space (1994-1997)
Chair of the Parliamentary Space Committee (2005-2010)
Chair, European Inter-Parliamentary Space Conference (2009)
Executive summary
- This year’s report by the National Audit Office (NAO) criticising the United Kingdom’s (UK) Space Agency is an indictment of the failing status quo in British space policy. It should trigger a major reform of the government’s entire approach to this area.
- These revelations come at a difficult moment for Britain’s space prospects, both internally, as finances are tight, and externally, as the security threat picture in the space domain worsens, and commercial space competition sharpens.
- The new government ought to grip space policy decisively by re-asserting control, re-organising the institutional framework, cutting waste, and focusing on concrete space capability outputs tied to national interests.
- The concept of a ‘National Space Enterprise’ – similar to that of ‘Defence Nuclear Enterprise’ – should be adopted as a focus and object of this reform agenda for British space policy.
- Cohering the UK Space Enterprise from a policy perspective should incorporate three key principles:
- Unity of effort and vision across the breath of government space activity;
- Speed of delivery and implementation of the new space policy plans;
- Capacity and ability to actually manage and deliver major space programmes.
- To create a strong National Space Enterprise the government should action a simple but bold four-point ‘UK Space Plan’:
- Re-establish the UK Space Agency (after a full review) with new powers and authorities as the country’s central ‘three-star’ organisation for national space policy and delivery (across both civil and Defence space), on France’s Centre National D’études Spatiales (CNES) [National Centre for Space Studies] model. The new UK Space Agency should report directly to the National Space Council, ideally chaired by the prime minister;
- Consolidate all relevant, publicly-funded space research and development (R&D) activities, centres of excellence and labs (including from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and RAL Space) under a single Space Missions Centre, subordinated to the new UK Space Agency. This would function as the government’s technical arm and main lab for building end-to-end space systems and missions, increasing national capacity for space programme management;
- Consolidate all sovereign civil and military orbital capability requirements under a single and clearly specified Operational Capability Plan aligned with UK’s space interests and designed as a multi-orbit ‘sovereign’ space architecture on ‘system of systems’ principles, for maximum synergy. Effectively, this would become the heart of Britain’s national space programme. It would not require new funding; costs would be met by slashing wasteful grants programmes and combining some of the budgets of existing capability commitments across both civil and defence space;
- Create a highly specific, ten-year Space Technology R&D Plan deliberately linked and designed to support both civil and defence end-point capability objectives (set by the Capability Plan). This would subsume existing space research projects across the public sector insofar as they are relevant to capability outputs, with the rest of the national space science portfolio left as is.
- Under new leadership, His Majesty’s (HM) Government has the opportunity to grip the country’s drifting space policy and reset the National Space Enterprise along more rational and effective lines of effort – thus laying the foundations for the UK to become a serious space power in the 21st century, with benefits to national security and economy, as well as strategic advantage.
About the author
Gabriel Elefteriu is the Deputy Director at the Council on Geostrategy, where his research focuses on defence and space policy. Gabriel also leads the Strategic Advantage Cell. Previously he was Director of Research and Strategy and member of the Senior Management Team at Policy Exchange, where he also founded and directed the first dedicated Space Policy Research Unit in the United Kingdom. Gabriel is also an Associate of King’s College, London, an elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a founding partner at AstroAnalytica, a space consultancy.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Leyton Wells for his generous research support; his colleagues at the Council on Geostrategy; and the external reviewers consulted for this paper.
Disclaimer
This publication should not be considered in any way to constitute advice. It is for knowledge and educational purposes only. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Council on Geostrategy or the views of its Advisory Council.
Image credit: Northwestern Europe at night by VIIRS, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
No. 2024/36 | ISBN 978-1-914441-87-5