- Innovative ideas receive funding to overcome major space
hurdles as a result of an innovative campaign
- Space to Innovate also aims to promote space resilience and
operational effectiveness
- Proposals focus on novel Intelligence, Surveillance &
Reconnaissance (ISR) and communications technologies
The funding – announced today at the Farnborough International
Airshow - has been allocated to projects that improve
intelligence gathering, threat assessments, and enhance the
monitoring of spacecraft.
Space to Innovate Campaign - Bravo was launched in September
2021, and sought to find innovations that maintain the UK’s
freedom to operate in the space domain by developing future space
technologies that enhance and protect military and civilian
activity.
The winning organisations include:
- AltaRange Ltd (Scotland)
- Fraunhofer UK Research Ltd and Fraunhofer Centre for Applied
Photonics (Scotland)
- Slipstream Engineering Design Ltd (Yorkshire and the Humber)
- AVoptics (South west)
- Astroscale (South east)
Space-based services and satellites are vital to modern life,
enabling a range of civilian and military activities such as
global communications, secure navigation, banking transactions
and transport. Any form of disturbance to UK space capabilities,
whether natural or intentional, can have a huge effect on these
critical services and the UK economy as a result.
Air-Vice Marshal Paul Godfrey, Commander of UK Space
Command, said:
This is an exciting time for the UK’s space sector. It’s great to
see companies across the union continuously challenging the norms
and improving the UK’s ability to operate effectively and safely
in space through innovative technologies.
Bravo Drop is the next part in the collaboration between
Government, Defence, and industry and is crucial to our mission
to make space safe, secure, and sustainable for all generations.
The Space to Innovate Campaign aims to find and fund solutions to
major space hurdles to promote space resilience and operational
effectiveness. Funded through Space to
Innovate Campaign – Bravo Drop, the campaign is a joint
collaboration between the Defence Science and Technology
Laboratory (Dstl) UK Space Agency and Defence and Security
Accelerator (DASA).
Dr Mike O’Callaghan, Dstl Space Programme Manager,
said:
This is a hugely exciting time for Dstl with the launch of two
satellite missions from the UK later this year. Accelerating the
development of these technologies could enhance future space
operations and contribute to improved space domain awareness, as
well as more secure communications. We look forward to working
with all the winners.
Organisations were invited to submit their innovative
technologies and solutions to help overcome two key challenges:
- Novel sensing and Intelligence, Surveillance &
Reconnaissance (ISR) technologies.
- Novel approaches to improve signal-to-noise performance of
space-related communications, sensing, identification or tracking
capabilities.
The winners now have up to 20 months to complete their projects
and deliver the results.
The Space to
Innovate Campaign – Alpha Drop aimed to identify
visualisation tools to enable space operators to exploit
information gathered from multiple data sources, and novel
methods for characterising objects in space and their intent.
