Space West Newsletter - September 2025
Welcome
Welcome to the September edition of our Space West Newsletter. With each newsletter, we aim to share the most recent discoveries, advancements, and stories from the world of Space in the South West.
About Space West
The Space West programme is hosted by NCC and is funded by the UK Space Agency. It is supported by founding partners including the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority, the Centre for Modelling and Simulation, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England. Reinforced by strong endorsement from industry champions, the Space Cluster has provided the momentum for the development of an ambitious and timely regional space strategy.
Space West is delighted to welcome ReOrbit to the region and support their announcement at DSEI earlier this month. The recent appointment of Simon Wheeler as VP of Software Systems at ReOrbit should probably have been a clue of what was to come. ‘ReOrbit is a European space technology company that manufactures sovereign satellites and connected systems for national security. Its technologies provide independent control of critical space assets and enable secure communications for both defence and civilian use.
Through long-term partnerships and knowledge transfer, ReOrbit ensures its customers achieve and maintain strategic autonomy.’ ReOrbit Press release. Space West has worked in partnership with Invest Bristol and Bath to secure this investment and it is testament to the vibrant ecosystem and talent pipeline that we have seen this second international investment in this region in 2025.
Thank you to our wonderful speakers Dr Sana Belguith, University of Bristol and Patrick Buckle, KETS, who kindly spoke at our first Space West Cosmic Catch Up- A Quantum Future in Space. Dr Belguith’s spoke about the toolsets that she has developed to help companies assess their risk and prioritise mitigations to help them to navigate and migrate towards quantum resilient systems. Patrick Buckle followed up with an enlightening talk about the benefits of quantum key distribution, the barriers and challenges to adoption and the work that KETS is undertaking to enable scalable QKD systems to radically reduce the cost and exploitation of these technologies. It was great to be able to bring people from across the region together and welcome new faces.
If you would like to speak at our next cosmic catch up and shine a light on your business- please do drop a line to [email protected]
- 24th October 2025 0830-1000 – Manufacturing for Space (Note the change in date!)
- 21st November 2025 0830-1000– Position Navigation and Timing
These informal meet-ups are a chance for SMEs, academics and industry professionals to drop in, hear what others are working on, and spark new collaborations. They’ll be comprised of short spotlights on recent developments, opportunities to showcase projects, and themed discussions based on current trends in the space industry.
SpaceAM is proud to announce a milestone: the first successful field trials of our in-situ, AI-enabled acoustic sensors. Why size matters: deploying ML devices in constrained environments—drones, probes, or portable kits—has always required trade-offs in power, size, and reliability. We’ve proven it doesn’t have to.
- Our ML model now runs on a single ultra-low-power chip
- Real-world acoustic filtering and target acquisition achieved
- Packaged into lightweight, rugged hardware for extreme conditions
This breakthrough shows autonomous sensing can be small, efficient, and mission-ready—no data communications required. At SpaceAM, we believe the future of intelligence lies at the edge: data captured, interpreted, and acted upon instantly, even in the harshest environments. If you’re working on edge hardware, autonomous sensing, or extreme-environment AI, let’s talk.
If you’re exploring funding options for your space-related project or business, we recommend checking out Space South Central’s Funding Flash via the button below. It’s a useful round-up of current opportunities.
