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Issue 37

09 Flash Archive · Members Only

UK Releases National Space Strategy

The United Kingdom’s National Space Strategy set goals for economic growth, international leadership, science, technology and resilience.

Author Minhas Published December 19, 2021

28 Sep 2021: The British government released a highly anticipated space strategy that outlines its plans to turn the country into a major global space power.

– The strategy outlines five general goals for the United Kingdom in space, including growing its space economy, promoting its values of an “open and stable international order” in space, supporting research and innovation, defending national interests, and using space for national and global challenges like climate change.

– The goals are supported by four pillars: growing the U.K. space sector, enhancing international collaboration, becoming a science and technology superpower, and developing resilient space capabilities and services.

– Despite Britain’s departure from the European Union it will continue to collaborate with other European nations primarily through the European Space Agency.

– The strategy said little about government funding for programs to support those goals. The expected Oct 2021 governmentwide spending review was to provide more details.

The document included few quantitative metrics for judging progress. The strategy calls for the U.K. to be a “leading provider” of SmallSat launch services and be “at the forefront” of Earth observation, but provided little to measure how successful the country is at those goals. Missing from the strategy was one metric that the British government had been promoting for several years: to capture 10% of the global space economy by 2030.

UK National Space Strategy.

UK National Space Strategy.