UK SPACE – More to do on launch

This week has been a great week for UK and Space. At the heart of the Nation’s drive to be a great science superpower, central to the Chancellor’s need to catalyse growth and with a burgeoning Space industry that is ready for action; UK Space is on the launch pad.

The CAA’s approval for the Cornwall Spaceport has come just in time to retain Virgin commitment and is a key step to the second space launch from the UK in the next few weeks. But we have to become faster at licensing or time will squash small enterprises and investors will simply go elsewhere. The CAA communications were first class in the last few weeks, but we must compress the time for analysis much closer to, or preferably quicker than, the FAA’s 180-day metric. We can do this by sharpening licence processes, releasing qualification criteria, publishing best practice, developing digital twins and retaining skills in the key CAA posts for longer. Licensing should be a parallel activity, not sequential, and a celebratory final hurdle completed just as equipment, facilities and projects are ready for lift-off, not a year or so later. If we want to get close to the best, we need to set tough performance, safety and time metrics and then out-perform them.

We have turned a licensing corner (we have done one), but we cannot be complacent and must be better, safer and faster – all three are possible.

Find us at www.space4sight.com, contact@Space4Sight.com or at LinkedIn.

@DanHart @Grant Shapps @George Freeman @Mark Harper @Mark Garnier @CAA @UKSpace @UKSpaceAgency @Colin Macleod