OneWeb has catapulted Britain back into the space race
After a nine month delay, in December, the next satellites in OneWeb’s satellite constellation will be blasted into space on the nose of a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome deep in the far east of Russia.
It will be a symbolic moment. Britain will be back in the space race, in particular the rush to launch for low earth orbit satellites against the likes of Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The $1bn (£784m) deal to rescue OneWeb that gave the Government a 45pc stake, sent ripples through the space sector. Here was a sign that the UK was willing to plant its flag after it unceremoniously crashed out of the European Union’s Galileo programme, a £9bn project to build a military rival to America’s GPS.
But the OneWeb deal divides opinion in the space sector. Those close to the project lavish praise on the innovative rescue deal, but industry is more cautious. Peers are sore about losing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of work on Europe’s Galileo.
Yet there are still industry leaders and even voices in Whitehall who, unofficially, see OneWeb as a bargaining chip to get a seat at the table on Galileo once again. Easy come, easy go.
Last week, the Business Department and the UK Space Agency laid out a new plan for Britain’s satellite navigation capacity. “Now is the time to drive this work further to look into wider, more innovative ways of delivering this important national capability,” says Graham Turnock, chief executive of the Space Agency. This new sat-nav programme would be key to developing innovative sectors such as “driverless cars, smart cities and artificial intelligence”.
In practice, this also means scrapping Theresa May’s £5bn plan for a true sat-nav rival to Galileo, known as GNSS. “They are going back to the drawing board,” an industry source says.
“The Government will be looking at multiple options to meet its positioning, navigation and time capability,” says Nick Shave, chair of industry body UKspace. “It will have terrestrial augmentation to meet the needs of the Ministry of Defence, and Department of Transport.”
Building sovereign sat nav capacity is seen as crucial for security. Until now, the UK has relied on GPS, a network of 24 satellites some 12,000 miles up that use atomic clocks to provide highly accurate location data. It was developed by the US military in the 1970s and opened up more widely by President Clinton for civilian use.
Yet the fact it is run by the US Air Force has caused other nations to look at alternatives, such as the EU’s Galileo project.
According to the Cabinet Office’s Blackett review, the UK economy would take a £1bn a day hit if GPS went down. With Russia and China building hypersonic rockets capable of knocking out satellites, top brass have started to take note of the very real threat.
The UK had been part of Galileo, the EU’s rival project. After Brexit, the UK Space Agency spent £90m looking at whether Britain could go it alone in a project that could cost £5bn.
But industry and Whitehall is divided on how to do this. Some want to build a full domestic system; others believe OneWeb could be retrofitted to deliver a similar service.
After 18 months of study, it now seems the UK will not just be building a carbon copy of GPS. When OneWeb became available, a plan B emerged. The UK could rescue the bankrupt company for substantially less and use satellites for positioning.
OneWeb _ Low orbit Satellites
“It makes more sense to examine how OneWeb can be turned into a global, sector leading positioning service over time,” says David Morris, the Conservative MP who chairs Parliament’s space group.
At first, the UK Space Agency snubbed the deal. But with GNSS scrapped, it seems all options are back on the table. “The [space agency] put £90m into GNSS. They are now accepting that is gone,” a source says.
The Business Department said it was now planning to look at “exploiting technologies offered by companies at the cutting-edge of innovation such as OneWeb, Inmarsat and Airbus”.
OneWeb was designed as a broadband constellation. It will provide rural 4G, and one day 5G, internet signals in hard-to-reach places.
Proponents say using it for positioning and navigation is perfectly possible. OneWeb’s first run of satellites would be used for broadband, but future satellites, that are easily customised and built in an Airbus factory in Florida, could include more navigation capacity.
These could be linked up to state-of-the-art ground control systems, some of which could house atomic clocks. Together, this would provide a viable back up to GPS. Sources say the US Department of Defence is keen on the idea, and more supportive of it as a failsafe system than watching Europe try and usurp GPS.
There are sceptics. Carissa Christensen, chief executive of Bryce Space, told a recent inquiry into the OneWeb deal: “It is an open question as to the extent to which that system, in the near term, is suitable for navigation.”
“OneWeb could play a role but it is not the full solution,” says UKspace’s Shave. “It would need to be integrated into a wider system. The UK has assets that could play into that.”
Unofficially, some in Whitehall say the UK could go even further. It is understood that European nations, including France, considered making a bid for OneWeb during its bankruptcy. There is a land grab for space and Europe does not want to fall behind Elon Musk’s Starlink or Amazon’s upcoming Kuiper — both of which will include thousands of low-orbit satellites.
The satellite space race
The impetus to rescue OneWeb was made even more obvious when Chinese car giant Geely and later the Chinese government both lodged bids, although some officials cannot decide if it would have been worse to let the French or the Chinese have it.
Despite failing to win the prize, some EU nations are still interested in OneWeb’s capabilities. “There’s nothing to stop OneWeb working with the Europeans,” a source says. “Then, maybe, let’s have a rethink on Galileo.”
Such a u-turn is not government policy. A spokesman told The Telegraph last week: “The UK will not participate in the EU’s Galileo programme.”
Some in the industry think it is unlikely. “Personally we think it is speculation,” says UKspace’s Shave.
Whatever the future direction, space now has a seat at the top table. A new UK Space Council is being chaired by Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the sector has the personal interest of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s top adviser. The Government’s overarching goal remains a 10pc share of the £400bn space economy by 2030.
In the short term, the sector is hoping for a stipend to support other projects. Shave, of UKspace, has called for a £150m government-backed space innovation fund. The body has also called for fresh investment in space for studying climate change. They also see a future for small launch capacity from space ports in Cornwall or Scotland.
Shave adds the UK should scrap the UK space agency and current model, and reform it. “We think a new space delivery agency is needed, we think that needs to be cross government,” he says, pointing to the £4bn Aerospace Technology Institute as a potential model.
Rejoining Galileo or building a UK sat-nav network may still be some years off. In the short-term, a handful of government special advisers to its new Bidco, its OneWeb acquisition vehicle, are furiously working through the final terms.
The deal still faces hurdles, including America’s CFIUS regulator, and the even greater challenge of navigating the US election. The Government and Bharti Enterprises, its Indian co-bidder, have already had to pump $235m into the companies even before the deal closes in short-term funding to ensure it is ready for launches come December.
If the deal goes through, the UK is about to become the owner of 74 communications satellites. Now it just needs to work out what it wants to do with them.
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