UK Boosts Contribution to European Space Agency

[Ross365]

It seems like we've signed up to a deal where we will spend appreciably more on space than ever before https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-63741202 The European Space Agency was asking members to increase their contribution by 25%, though few have done so. Our guy side-stepped the question on our actual increase, but the implication was it was more than most and not far off 25%.

This is quite a change for the UK; for a very long the UK Government(s) had zero interest in space. This change has only come about over the last 10-15 years; apparently the current PM is right behind it. Even when there was little Government support the UK did surprisingly well and there are a lot of highly skilled UK jobs in the sector.

Just a pity it is all happening after the company I worked for was sold to the Americans .

 

[Kram]

Massive waste of money when we are being asked to pay a lot more

 

[Ross365]

Disagree; these are good engineering and science jobs for a sector which has a proven record in the UK, something of a return to manufacturing high value products. Worldwide, Space is a big and expanding business. In the future, our Defence capability is likely to depend more on "space assets" than ever before. In the past, we have always been totally dependent on the US to provide us with satellite imagery, as was critically the case the Falklands.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

As long as it's not wasted on a moon shot or setting up a base on Mars. Would be good to see a roi within our lifetimes.

We should also use it as leverage for "something" with The EU.

 

[Ross365]

Yes, we've done Brexit but I think most of us would like to see relationships with EU as peaceful rather than hostile. I would imagine that France, Germany and Italy will think this a good thing. Remember also that ESA is not purely an EU thing; I think the Canadians and the Japanese are involved to a good extent, possible some others too.

I saw a few days ago that the Government has stopped the sale of a microchip factory in Wales going to the Chinese. There was a time when the UK had a significant chip industry; given the World shortage, and the strategic importance of those devices, maybe that's another industry we could talk a positive approach to.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

A new chip fab can cost up to $20 billion, very few companies, never mind countries can afford that. I worked in a Motorola chip fab in Scotland for 20 years, at one point they took over a new factory that had been built in Dunfermline for building memories (Hyundai pulled out) but in the end the company couldn't afford to facilitise it. back then in 2000 the cost to do so was £2 billion.

$2 Billion Scottish Facility Will Be Motorola's Largest European Chip Plant - Site Selection Online Insider

$2 Billion Scottish Facility Will Be Motorola's Largest European Chip Plant - Site Selection Online Insider

siteselection.com

It's now been demolished and is a housing estate near an Amazon distribution centre, skilled jobs replaced by unskilled, shame.

 

[maroon]

I'm sure our space programme is no where near europe. in cahoots with nasa /america. few islands in the middle of nowhere. ascention/asenca or something like that. only people who live there are millitary.

 

[Misterg]

We should also use it as leverage for "something" with The EU.

ESA isn't (in theory) anything to do with the EU - Canada is a member, for example, and not being in the EU isn't a bar on the UK being a member (although UK are excluded from working on some EU funded programmes - e.g. Galileo).

UK pays into ESA, then ESA issues tenders for research, etc. UK can bid for these through our national body which is the UKSA.

Hopefully a decent proportion of our ESA funding will find it's way back to the UK.

Unfortunately, my experience with the UKSA has not been good. It seems to be a totally disfunctional organisation without any accountability (no longer involved though).

 

[Pete.]

We (in the UK) have just built a large satellite testing facility in Harwell. They can hang up to something like a 10 tonne satellite in a large shielded room to test the antenna array, plus there's a pressure/vacuum chamber where they can bombard satellites with various wavelengths and a vibration testing chamber where they can shake and rattle them (hopefully not to bits) over a wide range of frequencies.

It's the only place outside of the USA where you can send this size of satellite for this kind of testing, and we have built it.

 

[Ross365]

I think the UK get's quite a lot of ESA funding. There is a major facility in Stevenage, originally part of British Aerospace, employs lots of people and is always very busy building spacecraft. There is a second one at Portsmouth, originally part of Marconi? . Both are now owned by Airbus. They get lots of work from ESA (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63741201.)

Something of a space corridor is being built up in a line going from Swindon and Oxford and then further East. As said above, the old Harwell site in deeply involved. The old Royal Ordnance Rocket Motor site at Westcott (near Ayelsbury) (once closed down but making a come back) now has a really good new rocket test facility, funded joint by ESA and the UK. The Norwegian company NAMMO build small space engines at Westcott and the British spaceplane project Hotol(?) is also there.

Any day now, Virgin's 747 should be going down a Cornish runway, dropping a rocket off of the wing which should push a number of small satellites in to orbit.

Sadly, the negative comments about UKSA above are probably valid. Success is being achieved in spite of them rather than because of them.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

Surprised Hotol is still alive, I remember it being discussed when I first started work in British Aerospace Filton back in 1984.

 

[Seadog]

Wasn't it HOTL?

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

 

[Seadog]

. This is the case with the British company Reaction Engines Limited's Skylon spaceplane, which has gone one better by including a helium loop precooler for greater efficiency. Based on Lan Bond's work on the HOTL space launcher of the 1980s, Skylon is a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane that's designed to take off from a purpose-built runway, accelerate to speeds of Mach 5.4 in the atmosphere, then boost to Mach 25 in space to carry 11 tonnes (24,000 lb) of payload into low-Earth orbit. Afterwards, it would re-enter the atmosphere and land like a conventional aircraft.

The general idea isn't new, but what is new and has garnered the attention of ESA, the British government and the US Air Force is Skylon's Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which is an air-breathing jet and a rocket in the same engine.

 

[Ross365]

The general idea isn't new, but what is new and has garnered the attention of ESA, the British government and the US Air Force is Skylon's Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which is an air-breathing jet and a rocket in the same engine.

Yes, the Yanks are very interested in it, just as they were with the jet engine .

I'd also bet good money that British Aerospace may have dumped it the past, but that their descendent BAE Systems is watching closely. BAE sold (or sold out?) all their interests in space back around 1990 and now they are trying to buy their way back in again. Bunch of sh*ts.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

BAe were building a spy satellite in Filton back in the 80s but it was mainly funded by the US SDI initiative, a new "secret" building was built and lots recruited to work on it. But by the late 80s the SDI money dried up and the project was cancelled along with the work on the N2EMP.

I really enjoyed all the projects I worked on there but the pay, condition and graduate training were terrible. I left as soon as my relocation conditions expired.

 

[Ross365]

I used to have work connections with Filton. They were responsible for the first four UK military "Skynet" comsats, but those got transferred to Stevenage and i think that was the end of space at Filton.

 

[skotl]

~12 years ago I was working for a different software company when our German arm sold some software to the European Space Agency.

At the time, we had an account manager in the UK called Jim Houston...

So I replied to the email saying "Congrats guys - great result! Does this mean that Jim will be the account manager for ESA as, when they have issues, they can call him and say 'Houston, we have a problem?' "

I though no more of it until I checked my emails later that day and I'd caused all sorts of consternation with ze Germans - their head of sales, Ingolf, was jumping up and down demanding to know why I had the cheek to suggest a British account manager for their client.
By the time I got to the end of the increasingly irate email chain there was a simple note from Ingolf:

I have re-read the email. It appears to be a joke.

Who says the Germans have no sense of humour?

 

[Ross365]

Can’t remember how it was funded, but Beagle landed on Mars about 20 years ago. Bit of a bump on landing, mind.

Ross is right, we need to be in the game, not developing in an isolated way.

I think Beagle was funded jointly by the UK and ESA, but that whole thing is such sad story. Remember "mad scientist" Colin Pillinger who was "Beagle's Daddy"? He died around 2012 just before the Americans spotted the spacecraft intact on the surface of Mars.

It had achieved a soft landing, but the blury images suggest the antanna did not deploy properly, so no "phone home". Colin Pillinger's autobiography is a good read, but he hated everyone at ESA, and apparently, with good reason. For what it's worth I hate them too (having worked with them), but we cannot go alone.

 

[Misterg]

I think the UK get's quite a lot of ESA funding.

I seem to recall that we were benefiting more than the value of our contributions (a few years ago, not sure what the current state of play is.)

I've found the people in the bits of ESA that I have had dealings with to be very good (it's just the UKSA I have a beef with - trying to get them NOT to funnel all the available funding directly to Airbus nee BAe.)

Having seen the acoustic test and anechoic chambers at ESA ESTEC, the new Harwell facilities must be impressive.