Satellite Applications Catapult – Written evidence (CAT0009)
The contribution of innovation Catapults to delivering the R&D Roadmap
About the Satellite Applications Catapult
“Innovating for a better world, empowered by satellites”
The Satellite Applications Catapult was established in 2013, as one of the first group of seven Catapult Centres to be created. Our aim is to accelerate the growth of the satellite applications industry, and in so doing contribute to the UK’s target of capturing a 10% share of the global space market by 2030.
We achieve this by being a focal point for industry of all sizes, finding ways for space technology providers, researchers and end users to work together to challenge barriers, explore and develop new ideas, and bring them to commercial reality. This enables us to release the innovation potential within our industrial and academic communities, and ensure the UK builds on its competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
In the year ending March 2020, we:
- completed 26 collaborative R&D projects,
- participated in 45 different collaborations with commercial businesses,
- helped companies secure nearly £40M in private investments
- engaged with over 400 SMEs, including over 150 that were new to the space sector
Our most recent annual report is available here.
The following pages contain our responses to the questions from the Committee.
- What are the latest science and technology developments underpinning your Catapult that will lead to commercialisation?
The history of technology innovation is one of a continuous cycle of emergence and then convergence. Right now in space we have both happening at the same time, opening both short-term and longer-term opportunities. We have new tech emerging (e.g. OneWeb, new launch solutions, quantum, …), whilst there is a huge phase of convergence occurring with tech from other sectors (AI/ML, robotics and autonomy, advanced manufacture, materials science, …). From a baseline of about 60 satellite launches/year in total 10 years ago, Planet alone now has over 100 Earth Observation (EO) satellites and OneWeb and SpaceX are intending constellations of more than 42,000. This is starting to make possible things we have never been able to do before: Automated analysis of imagery and video from space; Automated satellite tasking; In-orbit servicing and manufacture; Truly ubiquitous broadband and 5G.
Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing in capability and applicability and continue to underpin digital transformation and R&D investment;
- The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being integrated into strategic business decision-making processes on a global scale, extracting actionable intelligence from geospatial intelligence data and platforms;
- Chipset vendors are releasing architectures that optimise AI algorithms in low-power mobile devices.
- Visible plus Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data plus AI is enabling new applications, including building near-optical representations from SAR data (SAR works through cloud and at night).
- Thousands of low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) sensors will provide an alternative source of regularly updated information to satellites. Advances in data handling, especially fusing data, are enabling this.
- Research into Digital Twins is being implemented in large civil engineering and Oil & Gas sector projects and benefits from satellite data both visually and in modelling performance (e.g. monitoring bridges).
Alongside this, advances in materials and technologies for Flat panel antennas are critical for connecting vehicles and infrastructure and capitalising on advances in connectivity mega constellations. Developments in connectivity and geospatial are also underpinned by continued advances in mega-constellations, and supported by advanced manufacturing techniques and miniaturisation[1].
Developments in AI combined with robotics are making possible a new generation of even more ambitious opportunities in space, no longer constrained by limitations of launch. Early commercial opportunities with in-orbit servicing and debris removal are establishing the capabilities needed to support longer-term goals of assembly and manufacturing in space. In turn this will lead to many new developments, including improved mobile communications and even the potential to serve our energy needs from space.
The underpinning science and technology that will open up this new future include:
- Robotics and new materials science like graphene or self-healing materials.
- Photovoltaic technology evolution and advances in energy storage enable more to be done in space.
- Launch and propulsion developments are increasing both the ease of access to space and the ability to move around once in space.
- Fractionated and co-operative constellations (multiple satellites working together in close proximity) will enable orders of magnitude improvements in connectivity and observation services, and with greater resilience than a large monolithic structure.
- Research into commercial applications of microgravity is accelerating as low earth orbit is commercialised. The microgravity environment simplifies certain biological and physical properties and processes, creating opportunities in materials/manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and other key industries.
Climate science and Net Zero developments and requirements are also a key science driver. Continuous improvement in the resolution of satellite sensors are needed. The requirements of Net Zero are also starting to make the commercial case for further reaching initiatives like solar energy from space stand up.
- How might such science and technology developments lead to a substantial increase in private sector funding of R&D in the areas covered by your Catapult?
The space sector has been historically been dominated by state funded activities, and the private sector (excepting communications and TV) has largely stayed away. Now the sector is at a tipping point. When we started out eight years ago, there was almost no private sector investment going into the UK space sector outside of communications. Today, the sector is orienting more towards commercial opportunities and private sector R&D is increasing. Goldman Sachs believe “the space sector will become a multi trillion-dollar market in the next two decades”[2]. Space is a key element for global challenges, from energy to climate to food to connectivity.
The types of developments we talk about in Q1 are enabling commercial services and R&D investment today across the economy in sectors as diverse as health, mining and finance. Developments in AI, robotics and advanced manufacture will initially support private companies in connectivity and geospatial and in the end- user sectors they enable. As capability grows, larger non-space organisations that invest in R&D are getting engaged. In geospatial, IT business such as Microsoft and Amazon are now engaging. In connectivity, the links with terrestrial connectivity providers (e.g. Vodaphone) are growing, increasing private R&D investment.
The whole sector is maturing and innovating, but we should be ready to press home our advantage. Serious finance houses, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are now looking at the space sector. The setting up of the world’s first space-dedicated VC fund by Seraphim Capital here in the UK has been a critical part of enabling this transition. Space is now seen as an attractive investment sector, albeit still high-risk as it is so R&D intensive. Government’s role is moving more to that of a customer than a funder (e.g. SpaceX), which if leveraged properly, can also enable the private sector R&D investment to accelerate faster. The role of public funding in the sector also needs to be re-positioned against this new wave of opportunity. We can consider that there are three basic types of innovation:
1. Incremental innovation – improvement of existing products and services. Established businesses do this well.
2. Responsive innovation – exploiting changes in the environment or adopting new technologies. Start-ups focus here, and this is where most public R&D funding is targeted
3. Transformative innovation - this is creating the change that enables disruption. Often this is about turning technology into infrastructure (e.g. GPS/Galileo, OneWeb, Space Ports, Copernicus, Internet).
The current trend to seek immediate match-funding to demonstrate leverage is counter-productive. It pushes all R&D towards ‘incremental’. Government should fund more Transformative R&D at higher intensity, so that industrial R&D can focus on exploiting it. If we can do this, research today in areas such as space energy, or microgravity (pharma, semiconductors) will increase private R&D investment in the mid-term as major sectors like energy and health join the sector.
There is a greater need for two-way flow between research and industry with respect to space. Successful innovation requires the matching of supply and demand and in this case two-way flow between research and industry. More should be done to promote better cooperation between the research and business communities. The system does not make it easy to find and translate great research, both of which are key to unlocking R&D investment:
- it is disparate and hard to find. Self-recognising space research is mainly linked to exploration and EO, which is fine, but there is a lot going on elsewhere within the research base that is of value.
- Balkanisation of funding. There are many possible sources of R&D funding. However, each has their own set of arcane and complex rules which means there are very few which enable industry and academia to work together on large scale programmes.
- What should be the role of Innovate UK in enabling your Catapult to achieve more private sector investment in R&D?
Innovate UK is the primary source of public R&D funding for UK business growth and should continue to play a key role there. IUK can help in this area by:
- Encouraging R&D investment that wouldn’t otherwise happen. This means staying away from incremental R&D which the private sector already does well, and focussing more on responsive and transformative R&D. IUK does well at responsive, but there is a big gap in transformational funding in the UK.
- Accepting this is a long-term challenge and supporting transformational R&D. If private sector funding leverage is used as a short-term metric (as it recently has been), then this pulls funding back to research which is closer to market (i.e. incremental R&D). This is the opposite of what we need. We must be ready to fund more transformational R&D which in time will pull in more responsive and incremental R&D. OneWeb is the most significant recent example of where we are achieving that.
- Thinking differently about demand side innovation. There is very little genuine support for demand-side innovation. While much of the incremental R&D that is funded requires business cases and end-user engagement it is nearly always driven from the technology R&D perspective. Having the best, and most demanding, customers is one of the key characteristics for innovation and driving R&D investment yet support to engage with and open markets, regulatory interventions, or market incentives are uncommon, or at best rarely joined up with tech R&D. Government as a customer has an important role here too.
- Developing mission-oriented challenges that bring government, industry and academia toward a long- term vision and roadmap. If we can set some ambitious, longer-term goals as the UK, it will enable industry to plan and invest for the longer term. This can also bring the wider set of enabling factors, such as demand side innovation, into play.
- Ensuring that funding programmes are attractive enough for the best businesses and Catapults to engage with. Changes to overhead recovery and funding intensity rules recently have made many IUK programmes (e.g. ISCF[3]) challenging for industry and loss making for Catapults. This has led to many high- quality proposals being withdrawn as the risks would be too high. Businesses have also been deterred and we are aware of examples where they have opted to do their R&D elsewhere.
- Enabling funding that brings together research and industry. Most funding programmes support one of the other making collaborations hard. Equally, Catapults not being able to be funded with research funding makes academic collaboration hard. Balkanisation of funding acts as a real barrier and finding ways to align funding toward research and industry working together is key if more private R&D investment is to be realised.
- Identifying major challenge/opportunity areas for the UK where space could contribute to the solution. Space contributes to many societal challenges and opportunities and IUK is positioned to create programmes to support, bringing investment from space and enabled sectors.
- Bringing end user sectors toward space. Through IUK links into other sectors and through the KTN, IUK is also well positioned to bring other sectors toward space. This includes users of connectivity and geospatial services like Health, Transport or Mining. Longer term this would include engaging energy and health companies toward R&D around future concepts like space energy and drug development in microgravity.
- What is the split between large and SME industries with whom your Catapult would aim to collaborate to achieve substantial new innovation tie-ups?
We work with businesses of all sizes. We take an ecosystem view, with the aim of long-term UK success in areas we support after the areas have matured and consolidated. Of businesses we engaged in FY19/20, 249 were large and 524 SMEs (68%).
The UK has a strong and globally well-respected satellite applications community, with the space industry income having grown to £14.8Bn in FY2016/17 (on the path to an aim of a £40Bn sector by 2030). We also have a strong manufacturing and technology base who are starting to secure strong positions in the latest wave of emerging opportunities (examples include Open Cosmos, AAC Clyde and Astroscale).
Nevertheless, much of the UK space sector remains very institutionally focused, and the UK sector is characterised by a small number of large companies, typically aerospace companies, and a large number of very small specialist and start-up businesses. Four organisations account for 67% of total income for the sector, and 7 for 76%[4]. There are few self-sustaining medium sized companies, very little dedicated, long term capital and very few exemplar entrepreneurs. If the UK is to reach a £40bn sector it will need a much more rounded space industry ecosystem than we have now.
In our early years we concentrated on early stage businesses, as we then looked to stimulate a dynamic space start-up ecosystem. That is now flourishing, and we now aim more toward supporting businesses to scale-up. This will develop a tier of medium sized businesses that is now largely absent in the UK space sector. Our support for SMEs includes everything from business support and technical expertise (and facilities access) through to raising finance and connecting with large businesses and partners. Our business sprints have been extremely successful and we are now looking to develop our scale-up support programme further.
In many cases success continues to be realised by linking SMEs with large companies, be they customers to buy their services, or partners to scale-out their offer to their supply base. A lot of work we do is related to demand-side innovation and, in that context, we often also look to bring large companies from outside the space sector toward space. We have, for example, developed a very strong partnership with Sainsbury’s.
We work with large industry to undertake R&D programmes, where they can take advantage of our facilities, our unique expertise, or even just our convening power. We can bring the whole UK supply chain toward their opportunities (example – OneWeb and PNT[5]). Working with large companies and helping build out their supply chains in the UK has also been particularly impactful for us (example – Lockheed Martin and building out UK supply chains).
With the transformation of the sector, we are now beginning to work across large and small companies, government and academia to create long-term visions and roadmaps for key areas that can coalesce the community to execute together. Examples include:
- Our long-term technology strategy (see attached document pack) which presents a number of significant initiatives and how the sector can evolve toward them.
- The spatial finance initiative that brings industry and academia together to develop geospatial opportunities in the finance sector.
- Work to develop a long-term vision and funding plan for in-space services and manufacturing (IOSM) is something we are developing with the UKSpace working group for IOSM.
- Early stage activity to stimulate community building and a long-term roadmap to develop space energy.
- Should more universities be involved with your Catapult, and if so, how should they be incentivized?
To date Satellite Applications Catapult has fostered relationships with more than 150 University departments across 60 universities. Activities include:
- Strategic Outlook for the Space Sector – together with the UK Space Agency and Space Academic Network, we are developing a strategic outlook for the UK space sector.
- Regional Centres of Excellence – based in five locations across the UK, these centres create focal points for regional space activity. They link the local research base with industry and SMEs, to enable development of solutions, and engage end user markets (see Annex for locations/priorities).
- Talent and skills pipeline – Short term secondments (academic secondments, industry secondments and Catapult staff secondments) to support efficient and timely knowledge flow. The Space Placements in INdustry (SPIN) scheme has now been running for 8 years, and every year provides dozens of placements in the space sector.
- Collaborative R&D and Innovation – We support collaborative R&D and innovative projects across the UK and around the world. We are represented on steering committees for CDTs, and on boards e.g. FAIR- SPACE (robotics). We are always trying new mechanisms, such as a strategic partnership for open innovation with UCL and a pilot Earth Observation Commercialisation Engine based at University of Leicester to accelerate high potential ideas to business offerings.
- Accelerating Impact of Academic Research – through initiatives such as our Knowledge Exchange Fellows and alumni and Researcher in Residence Scheme, in partnership with EPSRC (AI and imagery, connected vehicles, air quality, quantum).
That said, we would dearly like to do more with universities, particularly in the areas of collaborative R&D projects, but the current funding structures are a real barrier. We would like to see:
- Development of new bold visions that Government, research and industry can collectively pursue: Universities need industry to be coming forward with ambitious needs and long-term goals that can be pursued collectively. Government, industry and academia need to be more effective at driving the agenda together. If long-term visions/roadmaps are produced, then there is a framework for different actors to coordinate against.
- Incentives in Higher Educational Institute culture for commercialisation and supporting big national ambitions, e.g. how academics are rewarded/credited in addition to grant success and number of scientific publications. Universities would benefit from more incentives toward industrial support and commercialisation although the measures would need to be intelligent to avoid short-termism. To maximise economic, environmental and societal impact, universities and academics should be incentivised to seek applications for their discoveries and support long-term national visions (possibly part of the ‘research excellence framework’).
- Appropriate funding mechanisms to enable collaborations with Catapults and industry. There do need to be better ways of Catapults and universities working together. Presently, Catapults and industry not being able to access research funding makes collaboration difficult.
- Prestigious fellowships. Catapults need to have access to world leading expertise. Mechanisms to “buy out” researcher time to enable more researchers to be embedded at Catapults through prestigious fellowships would help bring cutting edge capability into Catapults for scaling out to industry.
As the scope and impact of the space sector grows, it is important that a broad range of specialisms engage with space, beyond those self-recognising space faculties. We need academics in the end user sectors, in social sciences, and in economics as the opportunities from space evolve in order to maximise the benefit of the continuing commercialisation of space.
- How might your Catapult’s activities help the Government’s proposed levelling-up agenda?
The national distribution of industrial benefit has always been a high priority for us. From our base in the Harwell cluster (home of ESA and STFC – RAL Space), which has grown from five space businesses to more than 100 since we started, the Satellite Applications Catapult was one of the first to develop a regional programme. At a time when the policy was much more encouraging of centralisation around a single location, we pushed to establish a number regional centres of excellence across the country because we saw both demand and opportunity. This concept is now mainstream and is much better supported both within Catapults (updated GFA with IUK) and more broadly. Our regional programme is run jointly with UKSA.
Initially our centres were about engaging the wider end user market to promote opportunities from space. The sector needed to engage new ideas and new people in order to unlock new opportunities, and we have shown that our regional centres are a great vehicle for this. Our Satellite Applications Catapult Centres of Excellence in the South West, South Coast of England, and North East England, established in 2014, provide a link between universities and businesses in the regions, to help realise the potential of satellite data and applications. Based on success, we are now strengthening our other centres in the East Midlands and Scotland to a larger Catapult presence.
However, with the rate of change and size of opportunity now developing in the space sector, we need to dramatically increase the scale and impact of our regional presence, along with our partners and stakeholders. We need to move beyond engagement and demand creation to a national response with access to skills and infrastructure on unprecedented scale to build out capabilities and supply chains for the future.
Regional presence works best when led by the region. There must be an identified theme, and a source of funding. We are looking to create a network of equally motivated clusters, that brings the space sector and end user markets together. We will grow regional clusters, and our regional impact, through three routes: 1) More centres, 2) Better equipped centres. Providing Disruptive Innovation for Space Centre (DISC) type facilities, living labs, experts, business support or other, 3) Better connected centres. Our network of centres will be greater than the sum of its parts through our Virtual Innovation Network.
Outside of Harwell, our cluster development approach is most well developed at Westcott (near Aylesbury). The vision for Westcott brings together advanced manufacturing and end-user needs, aligned to local capabilities and priorities. This is captured in a 10-year plan now in consultation with local government and other stakeholders. Expanding this flexible blueprint across the UK enables the development of supply chains that will support downstream applications, space ports, and major new industries as the space sector industrialises toward the opportunities ahead. Interest from LEPs around the country is growing quickly and this will be an important set of interventions in levelling up.
We are also engaged in discussion with the following that could be accelerated based upon variations on the Westcott model: Llanbedr (Wales), Cornwall, Fawley (South Coast), Prestwick and Northern Ireland. Other regional interventions in development include (further information available):
- North East 6G Hub (connectivity – strong local interest and partnerships building).
- Large scale-living labs for infrastructure/construction.
The regional distribution of businesses we work with is shown in the annex.
25 November 2020
