This month (July 2011) saw the end of NASA’s long running Space Shuttle program. NASA is of course the North American Space Agency and has long been the forerunner, and most globally recognisable, of the world’s space agencies. But what of Britain’s space interests? How do we fit into the space-race? Well, on the 23rd March 2010, the UK Space Agency was launched to take over responsibilities for all of the UK’s interests in space exploration and discovery. In this article I will stumble through the legal mumbo-jumbo that inevitably comes with any Government agency, and give you an overview of who they are and what they do.
The UK Space Agency are an Executive Agency of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) who were initially brought into existence with the aim of bringing all of the agencies responsible for varying parts of the UK’s space interests under one roof. Their main responsibilities are:
- to co-ordinate UK civil space activity
- to support academic research
- to nurture the UK space industry
- to raise the profile of UK space activities at home and abroad
- working to increase understanding of space and its practical benefits and
- inspire our next generation of UK scientists and engineers.
Sounds very boring doesn’t it? But its extremely important to the UK at this time, as the UK Space Industry is a thriving economic market even during these times of recession. It is currently worth approximately £7.5billion a year to the UK economy and they directly employ 24,900 people. That is not bad considering they have a budget of around £320million. But they aren’t stopping there. They aim to have those figures up to £40billion and 60,000 jobs within twenty years. Not too shabby at all.
Whilst the UK will never be at the forefront of the space industry like your NASA or your Roscosmos, they are part of the European Space Agency (ESA) to which the are a founder member and the fourth biggest contributor. Although the UKSA currently has no involvement in the International Space Station (ISS) through the ESA, they do take part in other areas of ESA work. These areas include Earth observation, manned and unmanned spaceflight and robotic exploration.
On the 13th July 2011, the UKSA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) signed an agreement outlining areas that the two agencies will be working together in the future. This is a continuation from a previously signed agreement by the two agencies from back in 2010.
Further Information
Roscosmos
UK Space Agency on Twitter