The United Kingdom plans to increase its contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) over the next five years, according to the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
Subject to negotiation, space spending via ESA could rise from…
The United Kingdom plans to increase its contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) over the next five years, according to the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
Subject to negotiation, space spending via ESA could rise from around £170m to £240m per year. This will include some £60m of new capital funding in each of the next two years, additional to what was already allocated under the last Comprehensive Spending Review.
In return, ESA has agreed to site its new telecoms satellite headquarters in Harwell, Oxfordshire.
The precise size of the contribution will be decided when the Agency holds its four-yearly ministerial meeting later this month. At the meeting, financial commitments for the five-year period to 2017/18 will be made.
Addressing leading scientists at the Royal Institution in London, Osborne said: “Our ambition is to have a £30bn industry by 2030. We are now at a watershed where space is transitioning from a celebration of science endeavour into a capability that impacts on our everyday lives.”
Currently the UK space sector worth around £9bn a year to the economy and is growing at more than 8% a year.
Osborne added that the increased funding and creation of new space centre were expected to stimulate significant private investment in the industry. Companies working in the space sector had already identified projects worth £1bn that could flow from the extra funding, he added.
Science minister David Willetts, who was accompanying the Chancellor, later said: “This is a step change in Britain’s engagement in space in Europe, and we expect all that money to come back in industrial applications.”
