DSEI Gateway: How dual-use space innovations are supporting British defence
DSEI Gateway’s latest article by Benjamin Howe outlines the role of the commercial space sector in developing the British military’s space capabilities.
Space is essential, underpinning modern daily life and serving as a critical enabler for militaries. As noted in June 2025’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), disruption to the Global Positioning System (GPS) alone could cost the British economy £1 billion per day.
Considering this, the United Kingdom (UK) is seeking to bolster its satellite communications, situational awareness and navigation systems in space to ensure freedom of navigation and connect its ‘integrated force’.
Dual-use technology is integral to this. This was reiterated in the SDR, which was written by three leading defence experts and urged His Majesty’s (HM) Government to ‘maximise the synergies between the UK civil space sector and clear military needs’.
Capitalising on this demand, commercial space companies are actively involved in supporting some of the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) largest space programmes, including the multi-satellite surveillance constellation known as Istari.
Oxford Space Systems
One such company is a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) – Oxford Space Systems (OSS), which was created 11 years ago by a group of founders who observed a gap in the market for deployable structures in space.
OSS has been critical to some major British defence space programmes, including the Oberon synthetic aperture radar satellite Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) programme led by Airbus.
Airbus won the Oberon contract to build two Earth observation satellites – with support from OSS – in February 2025. OSS supplied the deployable carbon fibre Wrapped Rib Antennas (WRA).
The company came to work on the programme after receiving funding from the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and others.
Sean Sutcliffe, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OSS, explained to DSEI Gateway how this has allowed OSS to ‘take the technology from a stage where it is proven in feasibility terms, to one where we can realistically bid alongside Airbus’ in competitive processes.
The NSSIF is an initiative by HM Government and the British Business Bank to fund ‘pioneering dual-use technologies’, helping to scale innovations at pace. OSS won funding for the WRA in 2022.
Aside from defence, OSS has clients spanning the maritime and commercial air traffic control sectors.
‘Obviously, for defence applications, there are often higher specifications required for that, given the nature of the missions’, Sutcliffe noted, as he discussed how OSS modified its commercial solutions for defence.
While the products tend to have cross-sector utility, Sutcliffe acknowledged that ‘the main difference is probably the timetable that people are looking for’, as defence often has long procurement cycles.
OSS has also had support from other commercial partners in developing its technology; notably Airbus, but also Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), another company spearheading the MOD’s dual-use agenda.
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.
SSTL is significantly older than OSS, as of March 2025 having launched over 74 satellites since the company was formed four decades ago.
Andrew Greenhalgh, Marketing Manager at SSTL, told DSEI Gateway that the company has generated £1.8 billion in total revenue, with 80% of this coming from exports.
Originally spinning out of the University of Surrey, SSTL’s shareholders once included Elon Musk (between 2005 and 2009). The company was sold to Airbus in 2009 and has since operated as an ‘arms-length subsidiary’, Greenhalgh said.
SSTL has three primary business lines. These are divided into its export business, institutional business and its relatively new defence business.
During the interview, Greenhalgh said that SSTL ‘didn’t have a defence business until Darren [Jones, Head of Defence Business] joined us a few years ago’, mainly because until recently, there was less demand from the defence sector for the size of satellite produced by the company.
SSTL’s defence business has won several high-profile deals in recent years, including contracts to build UK Space Command’s Tyche and Juno Earth observation satellites.
For Tyche, the company won a single-source contract from the MOD under the broader Istari ISR programme to build an Earth observation satellite after discussions with UK Space Command and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
Jones told DSEI Gateway that before Tyche, the MOD had ‘never owned an ISR satellite before’.
‘We built and launched [Tyche] for UK Space Command last August. It is based around our Carbonite series of spacecraft and has an optical telescope within it’, he continued.
On the dual-use and broad applicability of Tyche, Jones described how ‘it has a few elements that are tailored towards the requirements of MOD, but fundamentally, it is our Carbonite spacecraft’.
Juno, which also forms part of the Istari programme, is due to launch in 2027. It will build on the ISR capabilities provided by Tyche, and together they will be part of ‘a constellation of satellites supporting [MOD] ground systems by 2031’, SSTL states.
Speaking about why SSTL moved into defence, Greenhalgh explained that ‘today, satellites of that size [150kg] have got defence use, which they didn’t traditionally have…We envisage in the future that maybe 25% to 33% of our business will be comprised of defence customers’.
A key consideration for companies seeking to enter the defence market is how much adaptation, iteration or change is required to their existing product line. When asked about how SSTL has handled this, Jones said that ‘fundamentally, they’re the same’, with varying specifications.
Greenhalgh said that defence users would need ‘a higher resolution image than a commercial user’, which would mainly be monitoring ‘agriculture, urban planning, mapping [and] disaster monitoring’, for example.
Commercial companies like OSS and SSTL demonstrate the role of dual-use innovation in strengthening British defence capabilities within the burgeoning space market – and amid heightened international competition in the domain.
Benjamin Howe is a UK-based journalist working for Clarion Defence & Security, having previously worked as a Content and Community Manager on Clarion’s digital products.
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