Space: Brexit's new frontier

Control centre for the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system.

CHINA'S out of control space station, which is set to come crashing out of orbit this weekend, offers an alarming metaphor for the possible trajectory of Britain’s multi-billion-pound space industry after Brexit.

The sector, which is worth £14 billion a year and estimated to contribute £250 billion to the wider economy, was almost universally dismayed by the result of the referendum. As Richard Peckham, head of trade organisation Ukspace and director of strategy for Airbus Defence & Space, put it: “I don’t think I’ve met anybody in the space industry or academia who wants Brexit.”

Along with broader warnings, about how the sector will cope with the likely impact on the cross-border movement of goods, services, data and people, on which it relies, there have also been specific and immediate threats to the sector. This includes uncertainty over the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s Galileo navigation and Copernicus Earth observation programmes, as well others such as Govsatcom (which deals with communications), IRIS (air traffic management) and SSA/SST (space debris).

Peckham, and others in the sector, have said that the impact of Brexit has already been felt, with foreign customers and suppliers making contingency plans to exclude British firms, as a precaution, in case UK companies become ineligible for future contracts.

His advice to the government has been not to approach negotiations with the EU in an “adversarial manner”, because other countries might see this as an opportunity to take work from the UK, while UKspace also outlined five things it wanted from negotiations with the EU: to retain full access to EU space programmes; to avoid UK industry being marginalised; to retain access to and influence in the collaborative R&D programmes run by the EU; to maintain access to the EU pool of skilled labour; and to keep frictionless access to the EU single market without burdensome customs and administration.

There is no evidence that ministers have been listening to these pleas, but space has certainly been elevated to the higher echelons of government this week, after it was revealed the European Commission had written to the UK to explain that it would be inappropriate to divulge highly sensitive information to a departing member state about post-2019 contracts for the secure element of its Galileo satellite navigation system.

“If the commission shared this information with the UK (which will become a third country) it would irretrievably compromise the integrity of certain elements of these systems for many years after the withdrawal of the UK,” the letter said.

It suggests Britain’s space industry will be locked out of the programme, with its companies frozen out of the next round of long-term contracts relating to the system – which are expected to be awarded in June.

Basic navigation services from the Galileo satellites are available for all, but use of the encrypted, robust Public Regulated Service (PRS) is designed for government-authorised users – such as the military, fire brigades and the police – and is restricted to those inside the EU.

The row suggests that every fear the industry has may be realised. The sector is so closely entwined with Europe that after the UK leaves the EU, it risks being lost in space.

This is not to say that ‘Europe’s’ space ambitions equate to the EU’s, of course. The European Space Agency (ESA) is a separate body, after all, and not part of the EU. Norway and Switzerland are members of the ESA, for example, but not members of the EU. And not all of the EU’s 28 members are members of ESA.

But the EU itself is a major contributor to ESA, principally for the Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS), which began operations in December 2016, and the Copernicus Earth observation programmes, and it is likely to become ever more involved in this field.

Airbus UK and other British space companies believe their expertise puts them in a strong position to win more Copernicus business and there will be dozens of new lucrative Copernicus contracts up for grabs in the next two to three years. But the latest row over involvement in Galileo might indicate otherwise.

The UK’s space industry, which provides jobs for around 40,000 people, has been doing well, buoyed by its previous close involvement in European space programmes, and is currently showing growth of around 7% a year. The sector’s success has helped prompt the Space Industry Act 2018, which received Royal assent earlier this month and is aimed at providing a regulatory framework for the commercial launch of satellites from UK spaceports.

Though receiving much publicity this is perhaps more a flight of fancy than anything grounded in near-term reality, and should not be seen as something that would provide anything like an alternative to ESA membership. 

Plans for commercial spaceflight launches from UK spaceports might become more viable in the future with cheaper launch systems, including some of the horizontal launch systems with which entrepreneurial UK space businesses are involved. On the other hand, several of the proposed spaceport locations are in Scotland, which might be affected if the country, which voted to remain in the EU, had a further independence referendum and decided to leave the UK in order to seek membership of the EU.

So what of the future of the UK space programme? As ESA and the EU are separate organisations, the UK will most likely continue with ESA membership as the preferred option for the foreseeable future. Although it is possible that the UK might look for other models, including a home-grown space programme, it is highly unlikely that Britain alone could undertake the breadth of activities in space science and technology that has been possible as a member of the ESA, including human spaceflight.

Stormy waters lie ahead for any organisation linked to Europe and the knock-on effects of Brexit for one of the UK’s most buoyant and future-looking industries and the thousands of people it employs couldn’t be more profound.    

This article by Clive Simpson, a freelance journalist and managing editor of ROOM - The Space Journal, first appeared in The New European newspaper (Easter edition, 28 March -11 April). 

Return of the Wren

Photo: Clive Simpson

WE'VE arrived at the equinox when the hours of light and dark are the same and it looks like spring might finally be on the way.

Over the short, cold days of winter we’d been diligently feeding our garden visitors - probably a dozen different types of bird each day - all with their own characteristics.

One feathered friend that didn’t visit the feeders was a charming little wren who was content with hoping around the hanging basket and tubs near our window, feeding no doubt on the insects living there.

The wren is one of Britain's most delicate birds, though size does not diminish its claim to be one of the most vocal. Wrens love thickets, hedges, undergrowth and shrubberies. Anything thick, dense and small.

But then came along the ‘beast from the east’ in early March, as the winter blast was labelled in the media and by gleeful weather forecasters.

It as like the door of the Arctic had been left ajar, allowing the cold air to pour out and sweep from the east across ill-prepared little Britain.

The regular birds were aligned on the garden fence and in the bare trees each morning as we pulled back the curtains on the snowy garden.

They were waiting in the bitter cold for their supply of seeds and bread crumbs, vitally important to keep them alive in such conditions.

In all this harsh winter weather our wren was nowhere to be seen, its supply of inspects rudely curtailed by the deep snow and sub-zero temperatures.

How could such a delicate bird - the smallest and lightest of British birds - survive these conditions?

Indeed, for two weeks after the snows and cold had abated we saw no sign of our tiny friend, which we judged must have perished in the hard conditions.
               
But then, three weeks later and the day of the vernal equinox, there was a sudden, brief flicker of movement on the patio beneath the door. An old wizened leaf caught in the breeze perhaps?

No, our wren was miraculously back, busily investigating its local territory and feasting on insects among the brightly coloured pansy flowers, themselves revived by the warming spring sunshine.

Here comes the sun

Photo: Clive Simpson

THE vibrant colour and noise of summer are absent on this visceral, unkind day at the English seaside.

It started with unrequited optimism, a slip of sunshine at dawn which quickly retreated into murky fog and cold, a typically dour and miserly January day enveloped in clinging mist.

There is no wind, just chill, and the grey sea is eerily serene and flat for the time of year, merging without definition into the distant grey shoreline.

We are standing on a narrow, exposed north-facing balcony of the the Rocket House Cafe, an oddly named building whose shape and design is more maritime than space launch pad.

A rusty tractor hauls two small fishing boats off the beach just below us onto a steep jetty. They are safe now, well above the concrete sea wall which snakes away in gritty grey tones behind them.

It carries the eye towards Cromer’s famous seaside pier with its quaint, rusty-roofed theatre in front of a modern, wood constructed lifeboat house which seems to hang on the very edge of the North Sea.

Warmth and light from inside the busy cafe beckon. The chatter is comforting and masks the bleakness of a seaside town in winter, as we hold closely our memories of summer and look forward to sunny days.

Rocket House Cafe

Photo: Clive Simpson

Did we fly to the Moon too soon?

UNBELIEVABLY it has been almost a half century since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounced across the lunar landscape for the first time.

Certainly, in terms of human exploration, project Apollo was perceived as a stepping stone to greater things rather than marking a pinnacle of human achievement.       

But the sudden cancellation of the final three missions - despite the fact that the hardware for each had already been built - ably illustrates the financial and political difficulties of sustaining space exploration. Apollo 20 was shelved in January 1970. Eight months later, Apollo 18 and Apollo 19 were also cancelled, making Apollo 17, all the way back in December 1972, the final and most recent human mission to the Moon.

Five decades on and the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Japan and India, along with a handful of private entrepreneurs and firms, all harbour new lunar exploration ambitions.

In October 2017, US Vice-President Mike Pence announced a significant re-direction for NASA - a new road map to create a sustained human presence on the M oon’s surface. It’s a big change for the agency which, for the past decade, has been heading, somewhat tentatively, for a future of deep space exploration and taking humans to Mars.

But words are not enough and to become reality ambitious programmes require ambitious sums of money, along with sustained long-term political commitment.           

Fortunately, NASA’s rapidly maturing new hardware for deep space missions can also be easily re-purposed to take us back to the Moon.

Its giant rocket - known prosaically as the ‘Space Launch System’ (SLS) - and a crew capsule called Orion designed to carry people into deep space, can easily become the mainstay of future lunar missions.               

A so-called cislunar architecture and an associated economy that supports or is part of a return to the Moon offers many opportunities.

Fresh political direction and some of the essential hardware may almost be in place but establishing a sustained presence on the Moon is also going to require the creation of a lunar lander, habitats, life support systems and more.

Long-term funding (at one point, NASA estimated a return to the Moon would cost upwards of US $100 billion) and time (particularly in a political context) are rare commodities in our modern world.

To succeed, space exploration projects still need to be challenging and inspirational, perhaps with a nod towards commercialism.

They must also cover the bases of meaningful international partnerships and private sector
participation, and include the less glamorous aspects of building components, delivering cargo and providing ‘multi-layered’ services.   

Today, the nature of leadership in space is very different to the politically driven aspirations of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then it was more about doing things that no other country could do - and being there first.

Ten years after Apollo 11, the science writer and science fiction author Arthur C Clarke suggested that space travel might be “a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century”.

If mankind was not really ready to go to the Moon in the late 1960s and the early 1970s then perhaps now is exactly the right time.


This article was first written by Clive Simpson as the Editorial in the Winter2017/18 edition of ROOM - The Space Journal for which Clive Simpson is also the Managing Editor. For online subscriptions please go to: www.room.eu.com.