News
Welcome to the UK Space Agency's News and Events pages.
Please select a news release from our latest news section or visit our events calendar relating to space activities in the UK and overseas.
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Yesterday
A rare encounter between two gas-rich galaxies spotted by Europe’s Herschel space observatory indicates a solution to an outstanding problem: how did massive, passive galaxies form in the early Universe?
20 May 2013
UK company Tessella has received a contract for the development and design of the Attitude and Orbit Control Subsystem (AOCS) for ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission. The project will last for approximately 4 years and be worth in excess of €4M.
20 May 2013
Former Apache helicopter pilot Tim Peake is to become the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station, making him the first UK astronaut in space for over 20 years.
16 May 2013
The review of competence covers aspects of space and innovation, therefore, for good or ill? Let us know!
14 May 2013
David Willetts, UK Minister for Universities and Science, and Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, today unveiled the Agency’s first UK facility: ECSAT, the European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications, located at the Harwell Oxford campus.
10 May 2013
The UK is set to take part in a European space mission to map and monitor the amount of biomass and carbon stored in the world’s forests. Named BIOMASS, the new mission will provide information essential to our understanding of the role of forests in Earth’s carbon cycle and in climate change.
7 May 2013
Astronomers using Europe’s Herschel Space Observatory have spotted a cloud of incredibly hot gas very close to the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
7 May 2013
Two thin layers of haze float in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The surface of the moon remained a mystery to scientists until the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.
2 May 2013
Observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have shown that galaxies in the early Universe were cooler than those we see around us today. This indicates that early galaxies were more bloated, containing more dust, distributed over larger regions.
2 May 2013
The Sun and our neighbouring planet Mars are two destinations that the UK and US will be exploring together in the coming years, following recent agreements for collaboration on three big space projects.
1 May 2013
The European Commission has launched a public questionnaire on how to maximise the market uptake of the EU's satellite navigation systems Galileo and EGNOS.
1 May 2013
The international Cassini spacecraft has found a powerful hurricane at Saturn's north pole, surrounded by a curious rotating hexagonal band of clouds.
30 Apr 2013
As night blankets the Northern hemisphere, the UK and Ireland shimmer brightly as networks of lighting branch across the landscape.
30 Apr 2013
Europe's Herschel Space Observatory has exhausted its supply of liquid helium coolant, after three and a half years of scientific observations. Using Herschel data, astronomers have already made ground-breaking discoveries about the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies and planets. But this has only scratched the surface, and there is far more still to come from the immense archive.
29 Apr 2013
Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and AMSAT-UK invite anyone with CubeSat equipment to a ‘Bring Your Own Board’ (BYOB) workshop. The aims are to demonstrate your latest CubeSat developments, to foster new partnerships and links within the UK and EU community, and encouraging more interaction with AMSAT-UK and the Colloquium.
22 Apr 2013
The French SPOT-4 satellite captured this image of the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo on 26 June 2011. The satellite image shows contrasts been settlements, forested and deforested areas, giving us a glimpse of our changing planet.
18 Apr 2013
Astronomers using Europe’s Herschel Space Observatory have discovered a distant galaxy that challenges the current theories of galaxy evolution. Seen when the Universe was less than a billion years old, it is forming stars at a much faster rate than should be possible according to existing predictions.
15 Apr 2013
The Herschel Space Observatory's view of W3, an enormous star-forming cloud spanning 200 lightyears. This stellar nursery, some 6,200 light-years away, is helping Herschel tell the story of how massive stars are born.
10 Apr 2013
Europe’s Herschel space observatory has provided the first images of a dust belt – produced by colliding comets or asteroids – orbiting a subgiant star known to host a planetary system.
9 Apr 2013
UK organisations concerned with space weather (industry, SMEs, research institutes and universities) are invited to take part in a meeting with UK Space Agency and ESA to learn more about the opportunities presented by the ESA Space Situational Awareness programme.
9 Apr 2013
The UK Space Agency and its Earth Observation Advisory Committee are hosting an Earth Observation Town Meeting at Central Hall in Westminster from 9.30 am until 2pm on Monday May 13th.
9 Apr 2013
A number of wildfires have been raging recently over the western highlands, Skye and the Western Isles. This image shows the burn scar of a huge wildfire north of Fort William.
5 Apr 2013
Thousands of school children got a satellite’s eye view of the Earth during Science and Engineering Week at the Big Bang Fair. The UK Space Agency was one of hundreds of organisations providing code breaking activities, explosions and robotics.
5 Apr 2013
Dr. Matt Perkins, CEO of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), has been elected Vice-Chair of the UK Industry Association for Space (UKspace), the trade association of the UK space industry.
4 Apr 2013
The 10th annual European Satellite Navigation Competition has opened. Ideas are invited by 30 June for services, products, and business innovations that use satellite navigation in everyday life.
