Memorandum submitted by Surrey Satellite
Technology Ltd (UKSA 21)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Progress has been made but SSTL is concerned
with the pace and the extent of the changes and the lack of communication
of UKSA activities.
INTRODUCTION
2. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL)
is a manufacturer and operator of small satellites. Growing out
of academic research at the University of Surrey the company was
formed in 1985 and became a pioneer in the provision of low-cost
small-satellites. In late 2008 the University sold the majority
of its stake in SSTL to the European aerospace company, EADS,
providing probably the largest ever cash injections to a University
in the UK from the sale of a spin-off company. Following this
sale, SSTL operates autonomously within the EADS Astrium organisation.
SSTL has a healthy and growing business and signed its largest
ever contract (c.£200m) earlier this year for the provision
of 14 navigation payloads for the Galileoprogramme.
3. The following evidence below draws on
the response submitted by SSTL to the government consultation
on the establishment of a UK space agency in 2009, which we attach
as Annex A.
Q1 What progress has been made in setting
up the UK Space Agency?
4. SSTL's 2009 submission was very supportive
of the establishment of the agency and we were pleased that (a)
the previous government initiated the process of the creation
of the agency and (b) the new government also appears to support
the agency.
5. Industry is not getting adequate feedback
on the changes being made through the transition of BNSC to Agency
status nor details of the plans for the future.
6. In terms of the operations of the agency
we perceive that very little has changed since the establishment
of UKSA from BNSC in April. In terms of the resources available
to the agency we are concerned that UKSA is as under-resourced
as the BNSC was (see answer to Q5) and this will inevitably impact
its ability to be effective during this transition period when
it must combine its usual activities with additional activities
related to the transition and to the actions arising out of the
innovation and growth strategy (IGS).[42]
Note that SSTL has seconded one of its staff to STFC for activities
at the International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) at Harwell,
which includes some time working for the agency. Without such
secondments from SSTL and other companies the resourcing issues
would be even worse.
7. We note the creation of the National
Space Technology Steering Group but have concerns about the small
and narrowly focused industrial participation in that group.
8. We feel that UKSA needs to significantly
raise its profile and gain the respect of its peer
agencies around the world. There is a danger of UKSA
being seen as an ineffectual, rebadged, BNSC. To be an effectual
space agency UKSA must have a clear remit, a proper reporting
line to Cabinet and a meaningful budget with adequate staff.
9. The announcement by the previous minister
that a new CEO is to be selected creates the opportunity for a
high profile figure to be recruited—in our opinion the agency
needs such a person in order to be effective in its relations
with government, industry, the media and with global partners.
Q2 How does the UK Space Agency work with
other bodies (national and international) on space issues?
10. We are pleased that UKSA is more willing
to enter into government-to-government MoUs than was the case
with BNSC. We see little evidence of other changes in its relationship
with other bodies.
11. We are unsighted as to what role the previous
BNSC partners (both departments and research councils) will have
in space activities once the transition to the full agency is
complete.
Q3 Is the UK Space Agency more effective at
coordinating space policy than its predecessor, the British National
Space Centre?
12. The ability to better co-ordinate space
policy was one of the key points we made in the 2009 submission.
We highlighted two key issues: (a) the failing of the partnership
model in providing adequate funds in the early phases of new programmes—especially
when these were of interest to several government departments
and (b) the need for a "space champion" in government
to proactively promote the benefits of space-based applications
to real-world problems.
13. Our understanding is that to date the funding
situation remains largely unchanged until the next government
financial year and following the CSR. We hope that the agency
will be provided with funding to address the serious problems
we raised in 2009—funding of early phase projects and co-funding
(with industry) of technology development (see IGS recommendation
3 concerning the National Space Technology Strategy [NSTS]).
14. We would like to note the support in
this regard from the Technology Strategy Board who not only provide
support to UKSA in its dealings with ESA on telecom and navigation
but also are prepared to consider provision of grants for small
satellite technology proving missions such as UKube-1 and TechDemoSat
(see IGS Recommendation 5 Action 5.2 concerning the TechDemoSat).
15. The "space champion" role
will be vital for establishing the business case and contractual
framework for the UK sovereign EO capability (IGS recommendation
5 Actions). Requirements need to be gathered from across government
and UKSA is best placed to do this.
16. The "space champion" role
will also be vital for making sure that cross-government UK interests
are aligned when dealing with opportunities overseas. Active co-ordination
is needed to align the interests of BIS/UKTI, FCO, MoD and DfID.
Q4 What should the UK Space Agency's priorities
be for the next five years?
17. The first priority must be to implement
the actions of the IGS. In addition there should be a priority
to improve its support to UK industry—in particular in dealings
with foreign governments that establish the framework in which
industrial contracts can be executed eg many contracts for provision
of major elements of space missions require government-to government
agreements such as MoU to be signed.
Q5 Is the UK Space Agency adequately funded?
18. BNSC was sorely lacking in funding both for
its own activities and for funds for national space activities
(this was identified in our 2009 submission as the key issue—see
response to Q1 in that submission in Annex A).
19. It appears to SSTL that to date this situation
has not improved. In particular during this very busy year for
the new agency it seems to have alarmingly few staff able to work
on the IGS actions. It is unclear whether ex-"partner departments"
and research councils have offered any staff to UKSA for this
transition period. Given the nature of the IGS actions their input
would be valuable eg IGS recommendation 5 concerning the sovereign
EO capability surely needs significant input from MoD, BIS, NERC,
DEFRA and DfID.
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd
August 2010
Annex A
Submission of 13/10/2009 by SSTL-UK
DEPARTMENT FOR
BUSINESS INNOVATION
& SKILLS (BIS) CONSULTATION
ON THE
FUNDING AND
MANAGEMENT OF
UK CIVIL SPACE
ACTIVITIES[43]
Q1 What are the major issues—if any—that
in your view limit the ability of BNSC to deliver a successful
UK Space programme? Conversely what aspects of the current BNSC
structure work effectively? It would be helpful for responses
to give evidence based on direct experience of working with BNSC.
The major issue is the fact the BNSC spends
nearly all of its funding in ESA and cannot, therefore, control
how the money is spent, what it is spent upon and where it is
spent. By its very nature, ESA makes implementation decisions
by consensus agreement eg pan-European science teams effectively
choose the missions and this may lead to outcomes that are not
in line with UK desires or UK space strategy. In contrast the
other large European countries (France, Germany, Italy) all have
space agencies and all have national programmes in addition to
their membership of ESA. The national programmes bring a host
of benefits:
— They enable nations to "fill the
gaps" with respect to what ESA does ie if ESA is not addressing
a national concern the nation can implement a mission—either
unilaterally or multi-laterally (typically bi-laterally)—outside
of ESA. Such national missions tend to be smaller and more efficiently
implemented outside of ESA. A good example would be the French
"Myriade" series of science missions addressing French
science priorities. — They enable nations to develop technologies
and gain experience, which they can bring to bear within ESA thus
helping to steer ESA towards the direction they wish to pursue.
Not only does the UK have no national space programme but it also
has no national space technology programme despite this being
announced in the 2007 space strategy where it was stated that
this programme, would "Bring better co-ordination to existing
national efforts and establish a suitably funded National Space
Technology Programme (NSTP) and establish two new technology capabilities
per year" and "Deliver proof-of-concept outcomes leading
to commercially financed exploitation projects by 2012".
In summary we believe that, irrespective of
the government level of funding of space, the balance is wrong
between nationally funded activities and activities funded through
ESA.
Conversely, the BNSC has had some major successes
by running national programmes in the past—particularly
through the MOSAIC programme, which ran from 2000 to 2005—see
Annex 1. In addition, previously the BNSC ran the Advanced Technology
Systems (ATS) programme that enabled UK industry to develop technologies
for both commercial and European institutional missions. This
has lead to the underpinning of export sales in commercial market.
Such programmes no longer exist.
In terms of the total level of government funding
of space we would suggest this is too low at present—UK
is well behind the other large European countries and UK seems
to find it difficult to fund programmes even where there is a
strong UK interest eg GMES—where future missions such as
Sentinel 5 Precursor are addressing global monitoring related
to climate change and pollution etc. This difficulty in funding
missions can partly be traced to the fact that BNSC is a partnership
without any budget of its own to use in the early phases of new
programmes when the major tradeoffs are being performed. Funding
difficulties also arise due to the classical problem of an interest
being spread across several departments. Unfortunately, BNSC controls
neither the direction nor spending in the other departments and
thus no overarching strategy across government departments has
been developed. This has led to situations for instance in the
EUMETSAT programmes, where the UK funds, through EUMETSAT via
the Met Office, the delivery of meteorological space missions
but where UK industry is not able to participate in these programmes
since the UK does not support the initial development performed
through the ESA. A similar situation exists in the GMES programme
where significant EU funding is provided by the UK but not matched
by funding into the ESA development programmes.
Q2 Compared to the current partnership, is
there a case for considering different institutional arrangements
for funding and managing UK civil space activities? What possible
alternative models might the Government consider, and what are
the potential benefits and disadvantages of these models?
As mentioned in the response to Q1 the UK approaches
funding for space very differently to the other ESA member states,
with comparable economies, and also to many of the other leading
G20 nations, many of which have space agencies that are largely
centrally funded. If the UK is serious about using space it should
consider as a minimum a two-tier funding mechanism for the UK
Space Agency: — The basic infrastructure (ESA mandatory
programme, Explorer Missions, Operational Programme Development,
National Space Technology Programme, National Application Demonstration
Activities and the UK Agency's internal activities) should be
funded directly through the UK Agency with a stable budget so
that activities spanning several years can be managed.
— Other activities additional to the basic
activities could be funded either by the UK Agency itself or from
user departments once the technology is proven and the user department
is prepared to fund an operational system. This is analogous to
the European situation with weather satellites—the R&D
phase of a new mission is funded through ESA with the first satellite
of the new type being the output of that process. Additional (operational)
satellites are then procured directly by EUMETSAT which is funded
by the user departments (in the case of the UK this is the Met
Office).
The failing of the current partnership model
is mainly due to the fact that user departments are asked to take
a lead too soon—in the R&D phase before they are sure
of the benefit of the space system. Where the interest is spread
across several departments, the present system discourages individual
departments to express an interest in a new mission for fear that
they might be expected to fund it. This situation arose in the
GMES programme—the benefits accrue across many departments
(Defra, NERC, DfID, MoD, BIS) and can only truly be assessed at
a level above these departments—an agency with a clear strategy
and funding could have resolved the problems. An agency could
federate the requirements from civil, security and military users,
consider the economic benefits and make the overall case for long
term involvement whilst maintaining UK influence in the early
phases of the programme when the system is being "shaped".
Another issue is the fact that the current arrangements
leave us without a "space champion" in the government—one
of the roles of BNSC should be to promote the benefits of a space
approach to the other user departments—as far as we have
visibility the current BNSC does not do this—it is a rather
re-active organisation and does not appear to pro-actively generate
interest in new space initiatives.
INTRODUCTION TO
Q3-Q13 TO STRENGTHEN
THE ANALYSIS,
YOUR VIEWS
ON THE
PROS AND
CONS OF
THE POTENTIAL
ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURES
VERSUS THE
CURRENT PARTNERSHIP
WOULD BE
WELCOMED ON
ANY OR
ALL OF
THE FOLLOWING
ISSUES:
Q3 Maintaining and developing a UK space capability
in industry and academia to meet UK needs, including our international
commitments
The present arrangements are workable for the
science users in academia—representatives of NERC and STFC
sit on the ESA programme boards where the programme decisions
are made. As a direct consequence the arrangements don't work
so well for the engineering groups in academia and for industry
in general—the UK position is generally driven by science
goals almost completely ignoring industrial and engineering benefits
of programmes. This manifests itself in the situation where UK
wants to build "science instruments" and expects a free
ride into space for these "instruments" on satellites
built by other nations. This is not sustainable in the long term—the
UK should be prepared to pay a fair share of the engineering necessary
to place the "instrument" in space.
Q4 Playing an effective role in defining future
European and global projects
As mentioned above the present arrangements allow
the UK to play an effective role vis-a"-vis science instruments
but completely fail in allowing UK to play an "all round"
role at the mission level. The effect of this is that (a) UK does
not play a major or leading role in most non-science programmes,
such as GMES and Meteosat and (b) even within science programmes
UK will lose long term influence if it is seen as only an instrument
provider.
The present arrangements make it very difficult for
the UK to play an effective role in global projects—the
majority of the current funding is given to ESA and very little
is retained for national, bilateral or multilateral activities.
This represents a missed opportunity for the UK—we must,
regularly, turn down opportunities to work with other major space
faring nations such as the US and the new emerging nations such
as India & China.
Q5 Enabling the views of the research communities
in Environmental and Space Science, and the wider user communities,
to be taken into account in decision making on new projects/programmes,
thus maintaining a user-driven approach
The present arrangements are purely "user driven"
so are good in that respect. The benefits of the user driven approach
could be maintained in an agency arrangement through the governance
structures—the user departments could provide inputs to
policy and strategy and also play a role in the management of
the agency.
Q6 Maintaining the Haldane principle in determining
decisions on Space and Environmental science opportunities
We see no reason why the Haldane principle, as currently
applied, needs to be modified. In those areas where the science
community currently advises, they could still do so. As currently
implemented, the Haldane principle only works so far—the
scientific decisions in ESA must be applied at European level—the
UK science community must try and find consensus agreement with
European scientists—they can not decide, unilaterally, on
the science that will be performed using their funding. It could
be argued that a stronger, more proactive, UK with an underpinning
national programme could better influence the science decisions
taken at European level as achieved by France, Germany, Italy
and the Netherlands.
Q7 Achieving an overall balance across the
science, innovation, exploration and operational opportunities
for space, and ensure the exploitation of space assets across
academia, industry and government
The current arrangements, being mainly science focused,
only address a limited set of opportunities. Little scope exists
to exploit the commercial markets. In terms of innovation, a major
problem facing the UK space industry is how to qualify new, innovative,
technologies before they can be used operationally. The UK science
and engineering community is very good at the early phases of
R&D—Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1-3—however
there is a technology "death valley" from TRL 4-7—where
the technologies are developed and flight qualified in space before
they can be relied upon as part of an operational mission. This
problem can be solved through a combination of the national technology
programme working in tandem with a series of technology demonstration
satellite missions. Such technology demonstration missions could
achieve a dual purpose of qualifying new bus and payload equipment
and prototyping new space services based on the chosen payload.
Q8 Developing the proposed ESA facility and
a coherent and complementary national space centre capability
It's good that ESA has finally placed a facility
in the UK—as the 4th largest contributor to ESA's programme
it's long overdue. The ESA facility will mainly develop through
the member state contributions to the programmes the centre will
be running. The national space capability is more within the UK's
direct control. What the UK should try and do is look for synergies
between things that UK does outside of ESA and those inside of
ESA—the UK has a lot of capability that could be applied
to improve ESA's performance. An example is the idea of the "cost
effective operations centre"—this could be provided
by the UK at Harwell—it would allow the UK to lead ESA towards
a much more cost-effective way of operating their spacecraft.
This could be developed in the context of the Sentinel 5 Precursor
programme—ESA has flexibility as to how it performs operations
in that particular mission.
Q9 Advising government on space funding in
the context of future spending reviews, and tensioning this against
other spending priorities
See Q12.
Q10 Negotiating with government departments
and industry to deliver their engagement in space activities
The present arrangements are not very effective in
this area vis-a"-vis other government departments. The BNSC
does not act as an effective "space champion" (see Q2)—the
debacle over GMES in 2005 is a good example—despite this
programme attempting to address issues of concern to the UK government
such as environmental monitoring and climate change the UK participated
at such a low level in the programme that it was effectively ignored
by the other member states when the programme was being shaped.
Regarding industry, the BNSC does engage but any decisions taken
by BNSC generally pay little attention to industrial benefit.
Q11 Promoting UK wealth creation through the
effective exploration by UK business of upstream and downstream
market opportunities
BNSC does support export initiatives even though
it has little dedicated resource to do so. This helps in the initial
phases of contact with foreign entities. BNSC doesn't really have
the resource to initiate these activities in a timely manner nor
follow through effectively eg when other countries want to sign
government to government MoU's—the main issue, again, being
resources to support the MoUs.
A more significant concern is the lack of coordination
between the UK government departments responsible for industrial,
economic and foreign policy areas. Many space export opportunities
require political support at the highest levels of government
and close cooperation between FCO, DfID and BIS. BNSC is currently
unable to provide this level of coordination or commitment and
any new structure must be supported by such higher level coordination.
Q12 Ensuring proper tensioning between expenditure
on civil space activities and other priorities across Government
The present arrangements are good for this topic
in the sense that space must justify any budgets as part of the
spending review process. If we move towards an agency this could
continue albeit with the proviso in the response to Q2 where we
argued that the agency should have some additional funds for infrastructure
and early phase work. The tensioning would still be fully present
for operational systems and services.
Q13 Ensuring proper accountability for expenditure,
including—if new budgetary arrangements are proposed—which
department is best placed to oversee this expenditure
It's really for government to decide but the BNSC
or agency should be monitored for performance—not only against
science goals but also against economic goals—the space
industry is a net exporter and could perform better with stronger
government support—this would surely be good for the UK
overall.
Q14 In addition are there any other issues
that need to be taken into account that would help the UK maintain
its excellence in any aspect of space activity?
As indicated in the answer to Q1 the current emphasis
with respect to BNSC focus is towards the institutional market
and for this some support is provided via limited 50% funded programmes
such as the Centre for Earth Observations (CEOI). This programme,
jointly funded by NERC, is exceedingly small and financially favours
engagement by the academic community who are able to secure 85%
of their full economic costs. This should be compared to programmes
in other ESA states where delivery of national missions or technology
activities leading to ESA missions is fully supported at the 100%
level, both in the technology development phases and the delivery
of the missions. Furthermore, it seems illogical that the ESA
missions, both space science and Earth observations, which are
typically one off, should be developed on the back of 50% UK industry
funding. Industry would be much more willing to invest in activities
that would lead to commercial programmes but little opportunities
exist. In the telecoms market the ARTES programme provides some
support and in principle the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) could
provide funding for other opportunities, for instance in the commercial
EO market, but TSB has so far not fully recognised the commercial
potential of the space industry and is not wrapped into an overarching
UK space strategy.
In the current economic climate with high levels
of government debt, it is felt that Space must be allowed to contribute
to the UK economy primarily through exports leading to an improved
balance of trade and positioning of the UK as a high value engineering
partner for the strongly developing global economies. A coordination
of policy between DfID, FCO and BIS to allow the industrial strengths
of the UK Space industry to be utilised in overseas aid and trade
partnerships is necessary. More importantly the current status
of space programmes as national endeavours needs to be supported
by interaction between the UK and international customers at the
highest levels of government.
ANNEX 1 TO
ANNEX A—MOSAIC PROGRAMME
Between 2000 and 2005 the BNSC ran a £15
million programme called MOSAIC (Micro Satellite Applications
in Collaboration). MOSAIC co-funded three demonstration missions
that tested small satellite technology. The three missions were:
— DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation),
led by SSTL.
— TopSat, led by Qinetiq supported by RAL,
Infoterra and SSTL.
— Geostationary Minisatellite Platform,
led by SSTL.
For the DMC, the BNSC funded one satellite in
the constellation. This then allowed SSTL to win contracts from
other countries to complete the constellation. SSTL is currently
replenishing the system with new, second generation satellites.
To date over £100 million of business can be traced to the
initial UK government investment. The system has also allowed
the UK to become an active member of the International Charter
for Space & Major Disasters in which space assets are used
to support relief work following disasters such as tsunami, floods
& earthquakes.
TopSat was cofunded by the UK MoD and successfully
demonstrated the ability of small satellites to generate high
resolution surveillance imagery. The technologies developed within
the TopSat programme are now available to MoD for future operational
systems. In addition the technologies have been commercialised
and underpin the businesses of SSTL and the RAL spin-off company
Orbital Optics (now part of MDA).
The Geostationary minisatellite platform project
developed equipment and designs that enabled SSTL to successfully
bid into the Galileo programme and build the first Galileo satellite,
GIOVE-A. Through this work SSTL is now bidding for a major part
of the operational Galileo system currently being procured by
the EC and ESA. Post -MOSAIC, SSTL has continued to develop the
platform and we expect Geostationary telecommunications to be
a major factor in the future growth of the company.
42 Space IGS, A UK Space Innovation and Growth Strategy
2010 to 2030, published 10 February 2010. Back
43
To be submitted to ukspaceconsult@bnsc.gsi.gov.uk by 14 October
2009. Back
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