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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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.
4 Apr 2013
This weekend saw the fifth annual UK Space Design Competition, where almost 200 school students competed to come up with the best design for a spaceport in lunar orbit. The winners will go on to compete in an international final at NASA later this year. The UK round of the competition is organised by Imperial College London and sponsored by the UK Space Agency.
2 Apr 2013
The internal structure of a human cell in simulated gravity taken on the International Space Station.
27 Mar 2013
The UK Space Agency is pleased to announce new chairpersons for two of its advisory committees: the Science Programme Advisory Committee (SPAC) and Space Exploration Advisory Committee (SEAC).
27 Mar 2013
The UK’s recent decision to subscribe to the European Space Agency’s ELIPS (European Life and Physical Sciences) programme has opened the way for UK-based researchers to participate in this unique, cross-disciplinary programme, making use of a diverse range of facilities including centrifuges, parabolic flights and bedrest facilities. This meeting will examine the bedrest facilities: how they are managed, how ESA defines AOs and selects experiments, and how UK researchers might get involved.
27 Mar 2013
On Friday 22 March, 120 student experiments were launched 30km up into Earth's atmosphere on two high altitude balloons. The experiments experienced temperatures as low as -50°C, pressures 0.6% of that at sea level and increased levels of radiation - conditions which are very close to that of the surface of Mars.
22 Mar 2013
The Open University hosted the UK Space Agency's Steering Board for its meeting on 19 March.
21 Mar 2013
Europe’s Planck satellite - a flagship mission for the UK Space Agency - has compiled the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background (the relic radiation from the Big Bang). The new map refines our understanding of the Universe’s composition and evolution, and unveils new features that could challenge the foundations of our current understanding of its evolution.
18 Mar 2013
ESA and Roscosmos have signed a formal agreement to work in partnership on the ExoMars programme towards the launch of two missions in 2016 and 2018.
18 Mar 2013
Academics, research fellows, postdocs and PhD students are encouraged to attend, as well as other stakeholders and industrial participants. The European Space Agency’s ELIPS (European Life and Physical Sciences) programme presents new opportunities for UK researchers and this workshop will examine the facilities, application procedures, ELIPS and STFC science overlaps, and bring together the UK community who could benefit from ELIPS science.
15 Mar 2013
The launch of the first ever Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering was announced today (15 March 2013) by Loughborough College and the National Space Academy.
12 Mar 2013
X-ray camera technology developed by researchers at the University of Leicester, for capturing black holes, is now being used to explore a new frontier: it is helping us to get up close to viruses on Earth, opening the door to solving medical problems.
12 Mar 2013
This stunning image shows off the beautiful Pearl-Qatar in Doha, Qatar. Spanning nearly four million square metres, upon completion, this artificial island will create over 32 kilometres of new coastline and be home to 45,000 residents by 2015.
8 Mar 2013
The UK Space Agency and the National Space Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan (KAZCOSMOS) have today (7 March 2013) signed an agreement outlining cooperation in the area of space activities.
6 Mar 2013
Space: Inspiration, impact and growth - making it happen.
5 Mar 2013
UK industrial team looking at the UK's future needs for launch systems and facilities.
5 Mar 2013
Europe’s Herschel space observatory is expected to exhaust its supply of liquid helium coolant in the coming weeks, after spending more than three exciting years studying the cool Universe.
5 Mar 2013
Students from across Europe have been selected as winners of the Cassini Scientist for a Day 2012 competition. Coordinated by ESA, national competitions were held in several European countries, including the UK.
1 Mar 2013
Over the weekend of the 21st and 22nd April, teams around the UK will be participating in the International Space Apps Challenge, bringing together people on every continent to find innovative uses for satellite data in solving everyday problems.
1 Mar 2013
Tweet the Expert is back for Climate Week and National Science and Engineering Week. Get your questions answered live by our experts!
27 Feb 2013
Mercury mission is baked at space test facility.
25 Feb 2013
The UK's first CubeSat, STRaND-1, successfully launched into space today, flying the world's first smartphone in orbit. Launched from India, on the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) PSLV launcher, the satellite hosts a Google Nexus One smartphone, a new Linux-based high-speed processor and attitude & orbit control system, and two novel propulsion systems (8 pulsed plasma thrusters and a water-alcohol propulsion system).
25 Feb 2013
This image captured by ESA’s Mars Express on 13 January shows some of the similarities between regions on Mars with those on our home planet. This natural colour view of the southeast corner of the Amenthes Planum features craters, lava channels and a valley from which water may have once flowed.
22 Feb 2013
Astrium has successfully completed thermal testing of the Alphasat telecommunications satellite.
21 Feb 2013
A UK led-led instrument has been selected to fly on Europe’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, due for launch in 2022.
21 Feb 2013
Europe’s Herschel space observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A, the first time this has been seen in a star beyond our own Sun. The finding is not only important for understanding the Sun’s activity, but could also help in the quest to discover proto-planetary systems around other stars.
18 Feb 2013
The UK Space Agency has recently announced the grant winners from the 2012/13 round of the Space for All funding scheme.
18 Feb 2013
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is due to be launched from French Guiana in 2018,
is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the biggest space astronomy project for a
generation. It is an international project involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian
Space Agency. The telescope will look for the first bright objects in the universe and for the chemical
signatures of life on distant planets.
15 Feb 2013
The House of Commons Science and Technology committee has agreed to conduct an inquiry into the work of the European and UK Space Agencies.
