Space West Newsletter
News from the cluster
Welcome to the March 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
Space West is a regional consortium of academic and industry partners designed to accelerate growth and innovation in the space sector within the region and nationally. The Space West programme is hosted by the National Composites Centre, in partnership with West of England Combined Authority, the Centre for Modelling and Simulation, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England.
Satellite Applications Catapult visits Space West
This month we were delighted to welcome John Abbott, the CEO of Satellite Applications Catapult, to the National Composites Centre, the home of Space West!
John's visit marked an important moment for Space West as we showcased the vibrant space industry thriving in our region. During his visit, John had the opportunity to meet with key members of our space cluster, tour the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and dive deep into discussions about the latest innovations and breakthroughs shaping the industry. The afternoon saw Space West convene regional stakeholders from industry, academia and public sector for a ‘Secure and Resilient Communications’ Roundtable which explored how the region’s excellence in cybersecurity, communications and semiconductors could be leveraged to deliver space-enabled secure and resilient communications. Thanks to Martin McHugh, CEO Semiconductors Catapult for chairing this and summarising so well the opportunity presented for this region in space.
The visit was closed with a drinks reception, kindly hosted by the University of West of England where academics, startups and established companies, were able to present on their activities and capabilities within the region helping showcase the remarkable work being done in the South West.
Additionally, as part of the visit, a Secure and Resilient Communications round table was chaired by the CEO of the Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult, Martin McHugh. This session generated excellent ideas for leveraging regional capabilities around which Space West can convene collaborations and activities.
Thank you to CSA Catapult and Bristol Robotics Laboratory for their support on this visit. We're excited to continue working together with Satellite Applications Catapult and other partners to propel the space industry to new heights!
Space-Comm Expo – Exploring the commercial future of Space for business
Rebecca Huffee, Space West Cluster Manager attended Space-Comm. The Space-Comm Expo gathers space, aerospace, defence, downstream and upstream industries for two days of high-level networking, discussions, education and business, focused on the commercial future of space.
Space West participated in Airbus Defence and Space’s roundtable, a cross disciplinary discussion and problem solving session to help build momentum and stimulate action around skills challenges and collaborative opportunities in technology, capability, regional development, social impacts and exports. The roundtable is part of Airbus Defence and Space recently launched Community for Space Prosperity (CUSP) partnership programme designed to help recognise, value and boost its investment in space prosperity across the UK space sector.
Space West’s regional cluster manager promoted the region’s vibrant ecosystem highlighting R&D opportunities surrounding the forthcoming ISAMBARD facilities as well making connections for businesses working in the region with the wider space community.
CyberSpark
Thank you to all of those who joined us for our CyberSpark workshop, aimed at developing a roadmap of activities that harnesses the region’s strengths in cybersecurity and space to fill the gaps and prepare for future technology enablement’s within the space domain.
We were joined by speakers from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Airbus Defence and Space, CGI and the University of Bristol and brought together industry, SMEs, government and regulators to explore and define actions. This workshop brought out some clear opportunities for both small scale interventions, like making more visible to cybersecurity communities the architectures that are used within satellite communication systems to large scale interventions around regulation. The workshop was designed and delivered by the Satellite Applications Catapult in partnership with Space West.
Space Census – Don’t forget to have your say
Join Space West in supporting the launch of the 2024 Space Census
Organised by the Space Skills Alliance, the census is for people working in the space sector, engineers, marketers, academics and PhD students, recruiters, and more. Participation in the census will contribute to shaping a more inclusive and dynamic space sector. Let's work together to drive positive change.
Visit census.spaceskills.org to have your say and make sure your voice is heard.
Space West joins panel at National Students Space Conference
Rebecca Huffee, Space West Cluster Manager joined space cluster leads including Louise Butt, Space South Centre, Joaquin Perez Grande, Satellite Applications Catapult on a panel entitled: An Introduction to UK Space Clusters at this years National students space conference.
It was refreshing to see such a diverse student community and Space West’s cluster manager was delighted by the enthusiasm and activitism of students seeking to leverage space technologies to address global challenges around energy transition, climate change mitigation and unsettled global politics and humanitarian disaster.
Harnessing these articulate and passionate voices is critical in championing space and addressing the gap that exists in the public consciousness and education around the value of space.
Spotlight on Foot Anstey LLP
Foot Anstey is a leading, full service national law firm with a team of specialists who focus on supporting businesses in the space & satellite sector.
Working in and supporting the growth of the UK space and satellite industry, Foot Anstey is one of the few law firms in the UK with the experience, ambition and expertise necessary to provide specialist legal support to space sector businesses and organisations, both upstream and downstream.
Foot Anstey is supporting the development of space clusters and ecosystems across the UK, in line with the National Space Strategy. At the forefront of the latest legal and commercial developments in the space sector, from assessing the impact of the National Security and Investment Act on your organisation to getting your space business investment ready, Foot Anstey harnesses the skills and capabilities of expert lawyers to serve the needs of space sector businesses and organisations.
Foot Anstey has supported nationally significant space projects, working with organisations such as Spaceport Cornwall, Space Engine Systems Ltd, Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd, Piran Composites, Space Professionals and Aspia Space to name a few.
Foot Anstey is a member of key space organisations such as the Space Energy Initiative and is a thought leader providing regular insights for example through our Thinking Global podcast series and speaking at the Space Sustainability Conference in Edinburgh last year.
Foot Anstey provides bespoke legal advice and solutions to support upstream & downstream commercial space sector projects, including:
- satellite earth stations
- spaceports
- space and satellite supply chain
- advanced manufacturing
- satellite enabled applications
- local authorities.
Foot Anstey offers a broad range of specialist solutions across multiple areas of legal practice, ranging from regulatory, intellectual property to real estate and infrastructure development, to find out more about their services visit their website.
Supporting entrepreneurial businesses
Foot Anstey has recently launched its very own business accelerator programme “Foot Anstey Enterprise”, supporting entrepreneurial businesses operating across the space, energy and marine-tech sectors to optimise their opportunities and achieve their ambitions. In addition to providing discounted legal and business support, Foot Anstey also provide a range of added value services, including using their own networks and contacts to help businesses grow through making connections across sectors.
To find out more, visit our website or contact us directly to set up a chat by emailing John Catchpole ([email protected]), Foot Anstey Partner and head of Foot Anstey's Space and Satellite Team.
Research in Focus
Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) is the most comprehensive academic centre for multi-disciplinary robotics research in the UK. It is a collaborative partnership between the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) and the University of Bristol, and home to a vibrant community of over 450 academics, researchers and industry practitioners.
Joe Louca is a researcher at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory working with Antonia Tzemanaki, an Assistant Professor in Robotics at the University of Bristol and their work has addresses the key difficulty that robotics in space face around latency.
Teleoperation allows us to bring human decision-making to hard-to-reach places. This will be a key enabler for the next steps of the space industry, such as in-orbit servicing and manufacture of spacecraft, orbital debris management, and in-situ resource utilisation on the Lunar surface. The problem, still yet to be overcome, is how best to perform tasks with the significant communication delays over these distances.
When delays are present, there is an unavoidable delegation of responsibility from the operator to the robot, and for this is to occur smoothly, the operator must trust that the robot will behave as intended.
Through conversations with expert operators of teleoperated robots from other applications, we have identified a list of requirements for what would constitute a trustworthy teleoperation system. Surprisingly, technical features such force-feedback were not prioritised by operators. Instead, they preferred user-centric approaches to build trust, such as providing low risk training environments to become familiar with their systems [DOI: 10.3389/fnbot.2023.1187264]. We are now exploring these requirements experimentally to determine their impact on trustworthiness and performance.
We conducted a user study which confirmed that, although it offers clear benefits without delays, providing force-feedback in delayed systems can actually be counterproductive "Impact of Haptic Feedback in High Latency Teleoperation for Space Applications”, accepted in Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (08/-Feb-2024). Following this, we will investigate whether using a more subtle form of haptic feedback through haptic gloves is more compatible with delays.
Looking towards the Moon, which is of particular interest considering the many Lunar lander missions currently underway, the best-case scenario delays will be 2.6 seconds. So, how can we capture the benefits of haptic feedback under these challenging conditions?
One option may be to operate the robot via a real-time simulation – the operator controls a virtual robot in a virtual world, and real robot on the Moon’s surface copies these movements. If the virtual world is accurate enough, then this could be used to provide force-feedback to help guide the operator. With this in mind, we have experimentally verified a virtual model of lunar regolith to determine how accurately it represents the real world [DOI: 10.3389/frspt.2024.1303964].
In collaboration with the European Space Agency, we are integrating this model with a robot arm test-bed to build a lunar regolith handling system. This could be used to provide stable haptic feedback which is robust to communication delays, or as a low-risk virtual training environment to prepare users for the challenges of operating on the lunar surface.
Link to our lab: https://www.dexterousrobotlab.com/haptics-for-space]
Opportunities
Details on open funding opportunities from the UK Space Agency, the space sector, academic, education and community partners.
Find out more.
A scheme designed to address key skills gaps faced by the UK space sector, aiming to fund key training opportunities to remove barriers to the sector's growth.
Find out more.
This year, the UK Space Agency is looking to support projects which contribute knowledge relevant to future human and robotic exploration missions.
Find out more.
This is an open call for expressions of interest in delivering future satellite innovation under the Competitiveness and Growth call of the European Space Agency (ESA) ARTES Programme. The envelope of this call is £10 million.
Find out more.
The purpose of this announcement opportunity is to support academics who have been selected for groups and/or science teams, campaign science groups and other definition work relating to Exploration missions.
Find out more.
This is an ESA-initiated programme offering up to 100% funding for developing early technologies and innovations. Invitations To Tender (ITT) are listed on the ESA website.
Find out more.
Since 2017, the UK has invested €50 million into NavISP to support the UK space PNT sector to innovate the next generation of space-enabled and space-supported navigation products, services and applications.
The UK investment in the programme is available to support UK organisations to undertake technology research and development focused on commercial innovation.
Find out more.
The UK Space Agency is offering support to UK teams selected for ESA microgravity student programmes, including potential funding.
Find out more.
The UK plays a major role in ESA’s Exploration Programme. The UK Space Agency wishes to support the UK exploration community to participate in, and benefit from, our investments in the ESA Exploration programme, and to prepare for participation in exploration missions with partners beyond ESA.
The UK Space Agency understands that there are numerous ideas and opportunities that could boost space exploration as a sector. Small scale funding is available to organisations that require additional support for activities which will benefit the wider UK space exploration community.
Find out more.
The UK Space Agency is looking to provide support to companies and academic institutions across the UK in developing innovative technologies to grow UK capability. We are keen to engage with start-ups and SMEs (from both within and outside the space sector), as well as established companies and organisations. Collaborative proposals are also welcomed.
Find out more.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £2 million in supporting innovation projects. These innovation projects will develop solutions that enable private investors to invest in nature positive projects.
This funding is from Innovate UK and is part of a £7 million Integrating Finance and Biodiversity for a Nature Positive Future (IFB) programme led by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
The aim of this competition is to mobilise significant private investment to scale nature positive solutions. The competition will enable the development, acceleration and commercialisation of innovative solutions. These solutions must enable private investors to confidently invest in nature positive projects.
Find out more.
Events
Maximizing product design with simulation and the digital twin.
Space robotics operations (on-orbit satellite servicing, manufacturing, and refueling) are complex. There is limited simulation data that constitutes these space operations, and the operations involve sophisticated maneuvers in the space environment (0-g environment in a vacuum with extreme temperature gradients). In the space environment, the mechanisms and structures can exhibit higher order non-linear dynamic characteristics.
Click here to find out more and sign up to the webinar.
Join Space West and Deloitte at Bath Digital (14 -16 May) for an investment readiness workshop, an event tailored to equip entrepreneurs with the essential knowledge and skills necessary to secure investment for their ventures. While specific details to be confirmed, attendees can anticipate valuable insights, practical guidance, and networking opportunities.
This workshop underscores Space West's commitment to fostering innovation and supporting the growth of businesses within the region. Watch this space for more information.
Watch this space for details.
Space West is excited to attend the Colorado Space Symposium from the 8th to the 10th of April. Don't miss our special event on the 9th, where we'll be hosting a special gathering.
Watch this space for more details!
Space West Cluster Manager, Rebecca Huffee will be speaking on innovation ecosystems at Bristol+Bath LegalTech. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights and network with legal and tech professionals in the region.
Watch this space for details.
Stay connected with the latest updates from Space West!
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Space West 2024 Activity Page
Stay connected and witness our exciting endeavors throughout the year. Explore upcoming events, collaborative initiatives, and engaging projects.
