Once around the Sun for the North West Space Cluster

The North West Space Cluster recently celebrated it’s first year with a day-long conference at SciTech Daresbury. Attended by over 100 cluster members, stakeholders, and national partners, the conference explored some of the most pertinent themes identified over the past twelve months, including:?

• How local support from national partners is essential for growth?
• The importance of understanding, mapping, and promoting our Universities space capabilities?
• Uncovering an ecosystem of accessible space testing facilities in the North West?
• The emerging importance of microgravity to the UK?
• Why Space is the next great arena for cybersecurity?
• Spinning Out or Starting Up your space business??
• Cumbria’s Space ambitions?

Furthermore, the event was the launchpad for the new ‘Lancashire In Space Partnership’, an agreement between all three Lancastrian universities (Lancaster, Central Lancashire, Edge Hill), the North West Aerospace Alliance, and the Lancashire Skills & Employment Hub. The Partnership will work alongside and within the Cluster to maximise Lancashire’s position as a dynamic hub for future flight, space, and satellite innovation.?

As we look ahead to the coming years, it’s important to reflect upon a few of our recent successes. In December, Cumbria’s National Nuclear Laboratory secured a ￡19m investment from the UK Space Agency to develop their PuMA2 facility, scaling up their extraction of Americium-241, a unique sovereign capability, for eventual use an alternative to Plutonium in Radioisotope Power System for space. Following this investment, the European Space Agency contracted NNL to supply future power systems as part of their ENDURE programme. Back on Earth, Liverpool’s MGISS was contracted by ESA Space Solutions to deliver a satellite-enabled service for the Utilities sector, enabling near-real time monitoring and alerts concerning disruptions to their infrastructure, thereby reducing down time during service disruptions and offering a more stable service to users. On the international stage, the Cluster hosted official space delegations from Canada, the United States, and Australia; the first time the region has featured on these global programmes. Meanwhile, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) became the UKs only site for the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), as part of UN-SPIDER; a specialised programme focused on international disaster management.??

Inevitably, it hasn’t all been success and the pop of champagne corks. Fortunately however, partners from across the Cluster have snatched fortune from the jaws of rejection. Despite failing to secure additional funding for a duo of programmes focused on facilitating regional diversification into the space sector, and defining opportunities for cybersecurity in space, parties involved with these submissions have stormed ahead with delivering the proposed work packages regardless, with both the University of Central Lancashire’s Innovation Clinic, and the North West Aerospace Alliance’s ‘WatchTower’ programme identifying Space as a route to growth, and delivering a series of events to help Advanced Engineering Manufacturing (AEM) businesses get to grips with the space industry and start their journey towards opening up the sector as a new market. Furthermore, with support from Plexal, the Security Lancaster Institute ran a workshop, the first of its kind, convening space and cyber interests from across the UK, to explore their mutual challenges whilst mapping emerging opportunities openly and honestly. Numerous opportunities for regional space industry development have emerged from these, and other, initiatives, and we look forward to delivering them in due course.?

In early 2023, the UK Space Agency released their ‘Size and Health of the UK Space Industry’ report which evidenced almost 50% growth of the region’s Space sector over the two years from 2018/19 to 2020/21, with almost three thousand jobs and an annual turnover now standing at ￡63m. Next years’ report will focus on the period immediately preceding the launch of the Cluster, during which the North West Space Strategy was compiled and stakeholders agreed to launch the North West Space Cluster, so it is hoped that these activities are positively reflected in the data.?

It has been said that there are four stages to any new venture: curiosity; comfort; confidence; and courage. Whilst the North West has courageously taken the decision to actively develop it’s space economy, we are still in the thrilling stages of curiosity as we uncover our own nascent space capabilities and seek to understand, access, and influence the trends and opportunities of the wider space sector.?

Space is already integral to our everyday lives, underpinning everything from food delivery apps to national security, and in the coming years we will begin the feel the impact of our civilisations rapidly developing space capabilities, with billions of people coming online for the first time via satellite based ubiquitous connectivity, and disruptive materials, components, and pharmaceuticals being manufactured in space for use on Earth, all as the Human presence expands onwards to the Moon and beyond. That is why the North West Space Cluster was established; to ensure that communities from Crewe to Carlisle are part of the next chapter of the Human adventure; to convene innovative partners and collaborations, create jobs, deliver economic growth, and unlock positive societal development for decades to come.?

We’ve made a good start, but there’s a lot of work to do, and a lot of rewards to reap.?

As some of you know, I enjoy a little sing-song every now and then, and there are two Sinatra lyrics looping through my head as I write this; “it was a very good year”, and, “the best is yet to come”.?