Global Network on Sustainability in Space (SPA0063)

House of Lords Select Committee on UK Engagement with Space – GNOSIS Response to Call for Evidence

This submission primarily responds to question 4 of the Committee’s call for evidence, but touches on other topics as well.

Summary:

The modern global economy relies on space. Travel and transport, emergency services, financial markets, smart utilities, green energy… – ALL depend on satellites. Satellites are increasingly at risk from congestion and debris; irresponsible or hostile actions; and space weather impacts.

The latest Size and Health of the UK Space Industry report[1] shows the industry generates nearly £19bn in income, supports £364bn of UK GDP, creates highly skilled, high productivity, jobs and has a thriving commercial ecosystem.

The global space market is set to grow to US$1.8Trillion by 2035[2]. This assumes a safe, sustainable, environment. Interlinked challenges of debris, congestion and lack of operational transparency threaten that growth – and everyday life as we know it.

Key orbits are becoming increasingly congested as companies compete to launch tens of thousands of satellites into an environment without binding “rules of the road”.

The space debris population – currently estimated by the European Space Agency at >130m uncontrolled objects[3] – is growing at an exponential rate. This is due to the increasing volume of satellites being launched and de-orbited, as well as large legacy objects left in orbit, such as rocket bodies, which disintegrate over time and can cause collisions resulting in significant debris fields.

Hostile acts, such as: the anti-satellite tests conducted by China (2007), India (2019) and Russia (2021); cyber attacks on satellite control systems; and unexplained close approaches to other nations’ satellites - heighten the debris risk.

The UK has a stated ambition to lead the global effort to make space more sustainable.[4] While progress has been achieved, the accelerated pace of development of the commercial space market has far outstripped the pace of development of the policy and technical solutions required to maintain a safe, secure, space operating environment. Considerable knowledge gaps remain and the data-sharing and mitigation solutions needed to safely manage the debris and satellite population are immature.

Other nations, and private investors, are investing in space traffic management (STM) capabilities - which will be key to enabling the sustained growth of the space economy. The global STM market is expected to be valued at US$17.7bn in 2025, forecasted to reach US$26.2bn in 2029.[5] STM will become as significant for the space sector as Air Traffic Control technologies and services are for the Aviation sector.

For the UK to achieve its goal of global leadership in space sustainability and capture a significant share of the future STM market, space needs to be recognised as a vital strategic plank of the UK’s national security and industrial strategies. In the current geopolitical climate, when the US is stepping back from global leadership in space sustainability, the UK could reap great benefits from stepping up.

Space Environmental Considerations

All satellites, and the rockets that launch them, must travel through a growing field of debris. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates there are more than 130m pieces of uncontrolled debris orbiting Earth – the volume is increasing all the time.[6] Approximately 40,660 are objects ranging from the size of an orange up to a no longer controllable satellite the size of a London bus weighing 8,211 kilograms. This space junk travels at speeds up to 17,500 mph – ten times faster than a bullet. Even a tiny paint chip can damage a spacecraft at those speeds!

Not just satellites are at risk. Human lives are at risk, too. The International Space Station (ISS) had to manoeuvre five times in 2023 to avoid space debris.[7] The ISS has had to change position more than 39 times to keep astronauts safe in its two and a half decades of operation – twice within the same week in November 2024![8] With the advent of commercial space tourism, ever greater numbers of people will be at risk.

In February 2024, a NASA satellite missed colliding with a defunct Russian satellite by just 33 feet.[9] There’s a risk that a collision in orbit could create a field of debris which could set off a chain reaction that would render space unusable for generations. (This is known as the Kessler Syndrome.) The risk grows with each satellite launched and each defunct space object that disintegrates (an average of 10.5 fragmentation events per year)[10].

Some researchers estimate that more than 95% of orbital carrying capacity is already being taken up by space debris.[11]

Environmental conditions on Earth are monitored using well-established indices (for instance; greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, energy efficiency, biodiversity, waste production…).

There are no globally agreed, consistently measured, key environmental indicators for space - to provide robust evidence relating to the impact of human activities on the space environment, or the impact of space activity (launches and re-entries) on the Earth’s atmosphere.

This means that space policy and strategy are developed with insufficient evidence of likely impacts and outcomes; impeding efforts to reach international consensus on effective measures for space safety and sustainability and putting the growth ambitions of all space-faring nations at risk.

There are some published metrics relating to the space debris and satellite population – for instance, the European Space Agency’s annual “Space Environment Report”.[12] However, other reports apply different methodologies and draw from a variety of different data/modelling sources. Estimates from NASA and ESA of the “lethal non-trackable” debris population in Earth orbit differ by almost a factor of two.

There is little publicly available information relating to many other aspects of space environmental monitoring such as: light pollution; atmospheric pollution; water pollution; resource utilisation; the impacts of space weather on the debris and satellite population; and radio frequency spectrum fragmentation/interference. These are areas where research is limited, but emerging findings indicate adverse environmental impacts that are expected to become more severe in line with the increasing volume of launches and re-entries of human-made space objects.

Why Does This Matter?

Almost all (98%) UK adults aged 16-24 now have a smartphone[13]. In 2023, smartphone users spent an average of nearly 4 hours a day using their smartphones for everything from finding their way, to making appointments, renewing prescriptions, banking, shopping and, of course, staying in touch[14]. Handsets are equipped with chip-sized receivers picking up signals from satellites. Nearly all context-aware smartphone apps rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

GNSS systems enable time to be measured with an accuracy within billionths of a second, and location identified to within a few metres. Computers, telephones, ATM machines, stock exchanges, aviation, shipping, railways, nuclear facilities, electricity grids and the internet all rely on satellites for position, navigation and timing. The latest government estimates indicate that just a 24 hour disruption to GNSS systems would result in a loss of £1.42bn to the UK economy.[15]

Earth Observation (EO) satellites enable accurate weather forecasting and monitoring the Earth for national security, environmental protection and a growing range of commercial applications. EO data is a vital tool in tackling climate change - of the 50 essential climate variables monitored by the Global Climate Observing System, roughly half can ONLY be observed from space.

EO satellites have become an important strategic asset for defence and security and play a significant role in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance – as well as shining a light of transparency on armed conflicts taking place around the world.

Communications satellites provide essential services, especially in remote areas and while on the move – playing a vital role in disaster relief and bringing internet access to schools, hospitals and businesses in developing countries. They’re key to growing global prosperity and closing the digital divide – which has become even more urgent since the pandemic shifted so much of the global economy online.

The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs highlights how space-enabled data and services are valuable tools in progressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals[16].

Satellites support £364bn of UK GDP.[17] And, from a national security perspective - Space assets have become critical for intelligence and operations.

Space is Growing More Contested

Our growing reliance on satellites in our everyday lives is leaving us exposed, as a nation and as individuals, to increasing risk.

Space is a more contested domain now than at any time since the Cold War.

A growing number of countries are pursuing military uses of space and declaring space a warfighting domain. Defence Space Commands have been set up by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel, Turkey, US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, Peru and NATO.[18]

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have demonstrated their ability to jam, spoof and blind other nations’ satellites and China and Russia have conducted close manoeuvres near other nations’ satellites (including commercial satellites).[19] Earth Observation satellites in LEO have experienced interference with radio frequency communications as they pass over conflict zones on Earth.[20] It was reported that Russia was behind a massive cyberattack against Viasat’s network that took tens of thousands of modems offline at the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war.[21]

The US, China, Russia and India have all conducted anti-satellite weapons tests. In a 2007 event, China shot down one of their own weather satellites, creating the second largest space debris cloud in history, an estimated 150,000 pieces of debris.[22] In November 2021, Russia also blew up a defunct weather satellite, demonstrating their capability to destroy satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). They did this without warning, putting the lives of their own cosmonauts (and other nations’ astronauts) on board the International Space Station at risk.

US Space Command estimated that Russia’s 2021 test created over 1500 pieces of new trackable debris (10cm in diameter or larger) and is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces.[23]

Space is Becoming More Congested

There are currently around 14,050 satellites in orbit – around 30% of those are non-operational – in other words, “space junk”[24]. The satellite population is projected to grow at least fourfold over the next few years due to the growth of constellation networks – large networks of small satellites in LEO.

SpaceX has regulatory approval to launch up to 42,000 satellites. SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon and China SatNet constellations propose a combined satellite total of 65,000 in LEO.[25] Other nations are running to join the race. As of 2022, filings had been submitted to the International Telecommunication Union for over one million satellites.[26]

Commercial small satellites were first developed by the University of Surrey in the 1970s and targeted government support has given the UK a strong position in the small satellite market. The UK is the first nation to hold a stake in a small satellite constellation network operator (the 2020 investment in OneWeb) and the National Space Strategy declares the UK’s intent to capture the European market for commercial small satellite launch.[27]

It's clearly in the UK’s economic interest to see continued growth in the market for small satellites. It’s also in our long-term strategic interest to ensure the global satellite market operates in a safe and sustainable way.

It’s worth noting that almost two-thirds of satellites in orbit today belong to a single US commercial operator (SpaceX)[28] – which is majority controlled by a single individual (Elon Musk). In the absence of any global Space Traffic Control system – decisions made by SpaceX determine the safety and sustainability of the operating environment for ALL operators in LEO.

SpaceX’s latest Constellation Status report showed that its Starlink satellites now have to perform 275 collision-avoidance manoeuvres per day[29] – due to debris, congestion and the effects of space weather. All spacecraft operators are experiencing more frequent collision-avoidance manoeuvres.

By 2023 the US Space Force 19th Space Defense Squadron - which performs conjunction assessments for global commercial, civil, military, and academic operators - was issuing approximately 600,000 Conjunction Data Messages per day, an increase of 200 % over the average daily rate just three years earlier and more than half of those related to Starlink satellites.[30]

The September 2024 Civil Operations Dashboard from the UK National Space Operations Centre showed that collision risks to UK-licenced satellites increased by 42% in that month as a result of Starlink satellites being placed into similar altitudes to a number of UK-licensed satellites. As there are multiple operators in similar altitudes, it’s likely the number of collision risks will continue to rise.

In the aftermath of manoeuvres, satellites' actual positions may differ from their forecasted ones by up to 25 miles, making collision predictions inaccurate[31]. Each manoeuvre also uses up fuel and shortens mission life, and, equally importantly, causes hours of downtime and gaps in sensor data.

The UK carries liability for more than 720 active UK-licenced satellites. Dealing with congestion is a critical issue for both operators and regulators.

The impact of Space Weather

The UK Government’s National Risk Register assesses that severe Space Weather poses a significant risk to national security and resilience.[32] The more reliant we become on satellite services for economic growth and national security, the more vital it becomes to understand the impacts of Space Weather on the space (and Earth) environment.

Space weather can significantly impact satellites and debris by: causing increased atmospheric drag, making it harder to predict satellite trajectories; disrupting electronic systems through radiation exposure from solar particles; and causing scintillation in Earth’s atmosphere which affects both communications links and the radars used for satellite tracking - resulting in increased risk of collision.

Space Weather impacts on satellites can include malfunction, loss of data and connectivity, reduced satellite lifetime and even complete loss of functionality - depending on the severity of the event.

As was widely reported at the time, SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites on 3 February 2022 into an area where orbital conditions were disturbed due to moderate Space Weather activity over several days. On 4 February 2022, many of these satellites started de-orbiting. Within a couple of days, 38 of them were lost since their propulsion systems had insufficient thrust to counteract the higher than expected drag environment. It has been shown that Space Weather played a large part in the demise of those satellites.[33]

In May 2024, increased solar activity resulted in a major geomagnetic storm (named the Gannon Storm) which was the largest to take place since 2003. The difference between the two events was that in 2003, there were around 1,000 satellites in orbit. In May 2024, there were more than 10,000 active satellites and some 37,000 pieces of debris larger than 10cm.[34]

A study conducted after the Gannon Storm showed that, in the period before the storm, approximately 300 of the nearly 10,000 active payloads in LEO appeared to be manoeuvring. After the storm hit, thousands of active satellites began to manoeuvre in response to the sudden increase in atmospheric density. This is mostly attributed to autonomous station-keeping - which is a standard feature of the Starlink satellite constellation.[35]

The current approach to managing collision risks involves propagating every tracked object forward to identify potential conjunctions, then alerting satellite operators; hopefully, with sufficient time for collision avoidance manoeuvres to be planned and coordinated. When so many satellites manoeuvre at once, previous conjunction assessments are invalidated and the conjunction assessment process has to start again, once the new positions and velocities of the satellites are known.

The difficulty of forecasting the impacts of solar storms on environmental conditions, coupled with the growing autonomous station-keeping capabilities of LEO constellation networks, raises clear questions about the efficacy of existing conjunction assessment procedures during geomagnetic storms.

In addition to increased collision risk, Space Weather can also impact the operational reliability and accuracy of sensitive radio communication and navigation systems - affecting a broad range of critical activities, for example; civil aviation, maritime transport, time synchronisation, space exploration, in-orbit operations and autonomous navigation.[36]

The UK ranks amongst the top three nations in the world, alongside the US and China, for its excellence in Space Weather science.[37] It is an area where the UK has successfully applied research outputs to enhance operational capabilities – making the UK’s Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre a leading global centre for space weather monitoring and forecasting.

The International Picture on Space Traffic Management

Recognising that space has become part of their critical national infrastructure, other nations have devised STM strategies and policies and have been investing in the core capabilities needed to operate effective STM systems.

The US published its Space Traffic Management Policy[38] in 2018 – a key stated goal of which is to encourage and facilitate US commercial leadership in space situational awareness (SSA) and STM.

In 2019, Japan convened an Inter-Agency Taskforce on Space Traffic Management to promote effective action across ministries to address issues relating to STM.[39]

A 2022 Chinese Government White Paper set out the priorities for China’s space programme to 2027, including to: “strengthen space traffic control”; “improve its space debris monitoring system, cataloguing database, and early warning services”; and “build an integrated space-ground space climate monitoring system.”[40]

In 2022, the EU published “An EU Approach for Space Traffic Management”[41] – stating the “imperative for the EU to proceed with policy-making and action in STM” and setting out the actions the EU will take to strengthen STM capabilities, including developing new technologies and “making the most of the EU industrial ecosystem”.

Nations are also investing in building their Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness capabilities (SDA is the term more commonly used in defence contexts). These monitoring capabilities are a critical component of STM:

The US Department of Defence has invested US$1.6bn in their new Space Fence capability[42] and in procuring data from commercial suppliers to supplement their own datasets. The U.S. Space Force plans to spend a significant amount on SDA from 2025 to 2029, allocating $1.7 billion for ground-based SDA and $784 million for space-based SDA.[43]

Alongside strengthening their domestic capabilities, China and Russia have also been investing in expanding their SSA capabilities in other geographies. China has a growing footprint of SSA ground stations in South America[44] and Russia opened an SSA facility in South Africa in 2023, with stated plans to open further monitoring stations in Mexico and Chile.[45]

The European Commission has made €52m funding available through the Horizon Europe framework to enhance EU SSA and STM capabilities.[46] (The UK is excluded from participating in those programmes.)

In 2023, NATO launched a programme called Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space which is an effort to improve the collection, dissemination and distribution of space situational awareness data gathered by national and commercial space systems. The UK is a part of that effort.[47]

Other spacefaring nations, such as India and Japan, are also investing in SSA, with a view to enhancing their regional influence.

The UK Position

The National Space Strategy declares the UK’s intent to lead global efforts to make space more sustainable.[48]

The UK’s commitment to promoting sustainable development of space has been made clear through: embedding guidelines in the 2018 Space Industry Act and proactive engagement in multilateral fora such as the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) and Inter Agency Debris Committee (IADC).

In 2020, The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 75/36 on Reducing Space Threats through Norms, Rules and Principles of Responsible Behaviours in Space.[49] As the proposing nation, the UK clearly demonstrated its commitment to working to forge global consensus for space safety and sustainability.

Under the 2021 UK Presidency – the G7 agreed a joint statement recognising “the need for a collaborative approach for space traffic management and co-ordination”.[50] The latest G7 communique in July 2024 re-affirmed that commitment.[51] However, in the current geopolitical context, those commitments may no longer carry much weight.

In 2021, the UK updated the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and signed an implementing arrangement between JAXA and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory for cooperation on SDA research.[52]

In 2022, the UK Defence Space Strategy set out a commitment to invest £85m in strengthening SDA capability over the next ten years.[53] Contracts were awarded in 2023 to expand sources of SDA data.[54]

In 2023, King Charles III launched the Astra Carta, a framework from the Sustainable Markets Initiative aimed at promoting sustainable practices within the global space industry.[55]

In May 2024, the UK National Space Operations Centre (NSpOC) was launched to “combine and coordinate civil and military SDA capabilities”.[56]  The MoD has just concluded a procurement to update core NSpOC systems and stakeholders have been advised that there are proposals for further investment over the next 10 years.

In September 2024, the UK approved the UN’s “Pact for the Future”[57] declaration which observes that “Humanity’s reliance on space is increasing day by day”, affirms the commitment of 193 nations to work towards increased space safety and sustainability and to “discuss the establishment of new frameworks for space traffic, space debris, and space resources”. The UN has proposed to organise a UNISpace IV Conference in 2027. That would present an excellent opportunity for the UK to influence global STM policy consensus.

The UK has advocated for a standards-based approach to space sustainability and the first draft of a British Standards Institute Flex Standard for overarching principles for space sustainability has recently been published for public consultation (BSI Flex 1969 v1.0:2025-03).[58]

The UK led the ESA RemoveDEBRIS mission, the first-ever European Active Debris Removal demonstration and is leading the ELSA-M programme a public-private partnership  between Astroscale, Eutelsat OneWeb, ESA and UK Space Agency, which will be the world’s first satellite debris removal mission planned for launch in 2026. It has attracted inward investment from global companies such as Astroscale (headquartered in Japan) and established a National In-Orbit Servicing Control Facility at Westcott in Oxfordshire.

The UK is also one of the first nations to invest in atmospheric ablation research to understand the environmental impact of materials re-entering Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The UK is a leading funder of ESA’s Space Safety and Sustainability programme – which covers debris, in-orbit servicing, and radio spectrum impacts and includes the Vigil mission which will be Europe’s first 24/7 operational space weather satellite.

These are all positive steps in building the UK’s space sustainability leadership credentials and its operational STM capabilities. However, it remains unclear what the level of ambition is for the UK in the global context. How does the UK want to position itself with respect to the strategies that have been set out by other nations? Does the UK want to influence the development of the technologies and systems that will underpin a future Space Traffic Control system? If the UK doesn’t invest strategically in strengthening its research and industrial capabilities to safeguard UK-owned and licenced space assets, it will find itself having to pay for services and solutions developed by others.

What is the Market Opportunity?

All space operators share a common set of needs to monitor and manage what’s going on with their spacecraft and the wider space operating environment:

Those responsible for national security want to ensure the safety and resilience of critical national infrastructure.

Public and private sector operators need to know where their spacecraft are and want to reduce the waste and costs involved in delayed launches and collision avoidance manoeuvres - and want to bring insurance premiums down.

Insurers would value more accurate risk assessment and monitoring.

Investors want confidence assets are protected and revenues won’t be disrupted.

Regulators would like to be able to assess risks with higher levels of confidence, and be able to monitor compliance with licence conditions. The UK’s CAA cannot be an agile space regulator, open to innovation, without access to best-in-class space traffic and environmental modelling and monitoring capabilities.

Regulators also want to be able to attribute responsibility in the event of a collision between two licenced operators – as almost happened in April 2021 between SpaceX and OneWeb. Today, it is largely a matter of “who blinks first”. (In the latter case, SpaceX denied the risk of collision and OneWeb felt forced to move their satellite.)[59]

The general public want to have confidence that the government understands and proactively manages risks to their daily lives. They also want to be assured that taxpayer-funded activities are not damaging the environment.

There’s a pressing need for the methods the world uses to monitor what’s going on in space to take a giant leap forward. We’re trying to support 21st century disruptive businesses with tools and techniques not far removed from the ones used in the ‘60s - and govern them through agreements that have progressed little since the ‘80s.

ISO Standards, IADC Guidelines, the COPUOS Longterm Sustainability Guidelines, the World Economic Forum Space Sustainability Rating, The Earth and Space Sustainability Initiative, etc. - these are important. However, they all relate to nonbinding voluntary guidelines/standards - not enforceable “rules of the road”.

How can they - when debris, traffic and space weather monitoring capabilities are so immature? One of the first principles of good regulation is that it is pointless to legislate for rules that can’t be enforced.

The global space market is projected to grow in value to US$1.8trn by 2035.[60] This value can only be unlocked with accelerated development of robust STM solutions.

The global STM market is expected to be valued at US$17.7bn in 2025, forecasted to reach US$26.2bn in 2029.[61] It’s a rapidly growing market attracting significant private sector investment – for example, LeoLabs has raised more than US$120m in funding[62] and Privateer, backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has raised US$56.5m.[63] These investors are betting that commercial Space Traffic Control services will become as significant for the space sector as Air Traffic Control services are for the Aviation sector.

The UK has many strengths it could leverage to capture a significant share of this rapidly growing market. However, that requires ambitious and focussed national capability-building, with:

researchers incentivised to answer outstanding questions about how to model, monitor and manage the space environment in a more accurate, verifiable and timely manner – applying frontier technologies such as AI and quantum to innovate at pace;

MOD and civil space authorities using their procurement power to build UK industrial STM capability – with a clear stated aim of making the UK a globally important centre for developing – and exporting - STM products and services; and

clear political commitment to continue to position the UK as global leaders in space sustainability and a leading player in the future global STM market.

The UK has been successful in attracting inward investment to drive space industrial growth, yet – unlike the US, China, India or the EU - the UK offers a relatively small domestic market for space products and services. To continue to drive growth, the UK must focus on market segments where it can demonstrate its attractiveness as a launchpad for global expansion for companies looking to scale their international revenue streams. STM offers such a launchpad.

In addition, as the government determines which of the two or three high value potential future space market segments the UK wishes to target - such as in-orbit servicing or solar energy from space – it must be recognised that those disruptive new businesses will ONLY be viable with much more robust STM capabilities in place.

Recommendations

A global Space Traffic Control system will be essential for the continued growth of the space economy. If the UK isn’t at the forefront of strengthening understanding of the impacts of human activity on the space environment and developing leading edge STM technologies, we will not only risk missing out on a share of a significant export market, but will also find that our critical national infrastructure may grow increasingly reliant on other nations for its safety and sustainability.

Given UK liability for increasing numbers of satellites and the ever-deepening dependency of the UK economy on space-based data and services - there’s a compelling case for the UK to “up our game”.

However, it’s important to be clear that this isn’t something the UK can achieve on its own. Building the evidence base to shape global consensus; fostering collaboration between industry, the research community and policymakers; sharing knowledge and data to enable risks to be managed – these are all endeavours that require proactive engagement across borders, sectors and disciplines to be effective.

Recommended actions to advance the UK’s ambition to lead the global effort to make space more sustainable would include:

Develop and publish a clear UK space sustainability strategy that maps out a long-term (10 year) research plan to provide more robust evidence of the environmental impacts of space activities and develop mitigations. This should aim to build the evidence base needed to drive global policy consensus and accelerate progress towards binding agreements on space traffic management. The plan should reflect that foundational scientific research requires long-term funding to build expertise. It should include funding for research collaboration across international borders to maximise the impact of research outcomes on global space sustainability. It should also include funding for raising awareness, sharing knowledge and building the space science capacity of emerging space nations, so they are able to contribute effectively in global policy debates. This research plan should also provide assurance that the future investments the UK chooses to make in space are grounded in a clear understanding of the risks to, and environmental impacts of, those investments.

Co-ordinate funding streams across the UK science and innovation funding landscape to facilitate greater cross-disciplinary collaboration between, for instance; atmospheric chemists and satellite materials scientists, radio astronomers and researchers developing satellite electrical systems, space weather scientists and researchers working on improving understanding of orbital carrying capacity, researchers in AI and quantum and those working on advances in SDA systems. These sorts of cross-disciplinary research efforts currently fall between multiple pots of funding, which creates often insurmountable barriers to collaboration. There’s a great wealth of knowledge in the UK research community that could be leveraged to accelerate progress on space sustainability and STM, if that issue could be resolved.

Establish a route to making SSA data procured with taxpayer funds available to researchers and innovators. This could be relatively low cost and easy to implement and would serve to improve critical areas of understanding, such as reducing uncertainty in modelling orbital carrying capacity, as well as stimulating the development of new technical solutions and commercial STM services.

Develop and publish an ambitious UK STM Strategy and long-term Capability Roadmap – to steer research and innovation priorities - building on the work that has been done by the NSpOC, Met Office, UK Space Agency, National Space Partnership and others. This should set out how the UK will work with allies, and adversaries, to create inter-operable monitoring, data-sharing and coordination systems to reduce risks to the space operating environment.

Commit to further strengthening the UK’s STM capabilities and explore procurement routes to encourage the growth of UK industrial capacity in this area – with the public sector acting as “anchor customer” for innovation contracts. While grant funding has a vital role to play in stimulating innovation, public sector commercial contracts are even more effective in unlocking private sector investment. Contracts should be structured to facilitate export and the government should provide support for UK-based STM suppliers to grow their revenues through international sales.

Katherine Courtney is a Non-Executive Director and Chair, strategic advisor, STEM Ambassador and former CEO of the UK Space Agency. She chairs the Global Network on Sustainability in Space (www.GNOSISNetwork.org).

The GNOSIS Network was established in late 2019 with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council to bring researchers, industry and policy-makers together to share knowledge and accelerate solutions to maintaining the safety, security and sustainability of the Space Environment. The network now has more than 1,100 members spread across more than 45 countries.

17 April 2025

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