Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to support innovation in small satellite propulsion technologies in the context of the announcement of the UK Space Agency’s planned National Propulsion Test Facility at Westcott.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government has invested £4.12m in the National Space Propulsion Test Facility to support innovation in small satellite propulsion technologies; building on significant existing facilities and expertise at Westcott, Buckinghamshire. This facility will enable leading edge research and promote the development of an innovation community across the UK around space propulsion that stimulates R&D, facilitates the transfer of ideas between the research community and industry, and develops a pool of skilled people appropriate to the future needs of the industry and the sector. The facility can then enable UK Space companies to maintain and grow their competitive edge internationally through a world-leading facility that is attractive to foreign direct investment and one that will also allow universities to take on cutting-edge propulsion research topics. This environment will promote effective work between the research community and the commercial sector which will accelerate: innovation, knowledge exchange and commercial exploitation of propulsion and engineering research. These steps to support innovation will also help develop sovereign small satellite launch capability and the participation in international launcher R&D programmes.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential (a) merits and (b) commercial opportunities arising from the proposal to develop a new Disruptive Innovation in Space Centre at Westcott.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government believes that the Space Sector offers opportunities to drive economic growth across the country.
In order to better understand the pipeline of space research, development & innovation infrastructure proposals, which could be funded through a number of routes, the UK Space Agency has initiated a space infrastructure road mapping exercise and has been in touch with Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership to seek further details of this proposal for a Disruptive Innovation in Space Centre.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support the Government is providing to Local Enterprise Partnerships in order to stimulate industry growth in the space sector.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
We wish to see growth of our world class space sector benefitting the whole of the UK. The UK Space Agency, working with partners including the Satellite Applications Catapult, is currently supporting three Centres of Excellence in Satellite Applications (in the North East, South West and the South Coast of England). In November 2020 we announced £0.5m funding to support the development of new space hubs, bringing together local partners, expertise and businesses to create strategies for how their area can take maximum advantage of the commercial space race and align the space sector within their local industrial strategies.
We have also provided Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership with £7.7m from the Getting Building Fund, of which I understand they intend to invest £2m into the initial phase of their Westcott Disruptive Innovation Space Centre. In addition, specific work is currently being funded by the UK Space Agency to bring together the significant space interests across the Oxford to Cambridge Arc – including the exciting developments at Westcott - and to put together an action plan for the development of the Arc Space Sector.