In March 2025, the United States (US) administration suspended Ukraine’s access to the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery system; the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) commercial satellite imagery platform. The satellite imagery – provided by Maxar Data Technologies, the primary contractor for this platform – is used by Ukrainian forces, particularly for ‘tracking the movement of Russian troops and assessing damage to key infrastructure’.
Beyond the implications to the Armed Forces of Ukraine – and those allies supporting them – on the frontlines, the move reverberated across European capitals, seemingly validating concerns which had been building for some time. This included in London, where confidence in the reliability of a long-standing alliance and, among smaller policy circles, in the sense of assured access to space-based capability, appeared shaken. While injecting some urgency into British space policy debates and shifting its framing towards national security considerations, this also highlighted a number of unresolved tensions at the heart of the United Kingdom’s (UK) approach to space. It will be critical to address these tensions if Britain hopes to develop and deploy its space assets to secure strategic advantage.
The pursuit of national space capabilities today serves important geopolitical functions, such as strengthening alliances, achieving influential global player status and securing preferential trade terms, among others.
Dr Deganit Paikowsky’s 2017 book The Power of the Space Club found that the competitive atmosphere between the superpowers over space exploration during the Cold War created norms and conventions about the importance of space for national might and the exclusivity of national space capability. The pursuit of national space capabilities today serves important geopolitical functions, such as strengthening alliances, achieving influential global player status and securing preferential trade terms, among others. Space policy debates in most nations fall squarely within the wider historical context of geopolitical discourse, and the UK is no different. This has led to three primary policy tensions which reverberate in today’s debates:
Should space policy be deployed primarily as a tool to support economic growth, or to support geopolitical and national security aims?
Is a market led approach sufficient to support His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s stated space ambitions, or do these ambitions require a government-driven national programme?
Should Britain prioritise a few national space capabilities, or is there competitive advantage in a wide breadth of capabilities?
To understand the source of tensions in the policy debate, the British historical experience in space is examined in order to understand how these unresolved tensions have developed over time. An early space actor, the UK began its space activity in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was widely accepted that as a great power, Britain must be involved in space. The post-war nation faced a multitude of security, economic and political problems. Yet, argues Paikowsky, even as its empire was in decline, the UK was keen to preserve this status. And so, throughout the 1950s, Britain established itself as a leader in rocketry activity.
Following the launch of Sputnik on 4th October 1957, Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister, was keen to ensure the shock of this achievement tied the US to further cooperation with the UK, although he remained reticent to invest in an autonomous national space programme due to concerns over cost. The American reaction to the Sputnik launch was perhaps more decided than expected. Seeing the utility of developing an international alliance against the Soviet bloc, and as Britain seemed to be the only allied power in Europe in a position to support this aim, the US began to apply pressure on the UK to reconsider the development of its satellite programme.
In 1963, the Macmillan government announced that it would move forward with its space programme. As F.W. Farey-Jones, a Conservative MP at the time, declared to broad bipartisan support, it was time ‘to take our place in the vanguard of progress or to finish up as a small “offshore island” on the edge of nowhere’. The ensuing Ariel Programme launched six satellites and by October 1971, Black Arrow, a British rocket, succeeded in placing Prospero, a single British satellite, into orbit from a launch site in Australia. This first British launch, however, was also its last. The Conservative government of Edward Heath had by then cancelled the space programme.
Throughout the British experience in space, there has long been a lack of agreement about the purpose and utility of a national space programme. It has thus been subject to dramatic policy shifts driven by political cycles.
When the European Space Agency (ESA) was established in 1975, the UK joined and, as noted by Paikowsky, ‘the prevailing view was that participation in ESA effectively removed the need for an autonomous British space programme’. However, space activity in Britain did not cease entirely, as the commercial sector was making a number of advances throughout the early 1980s. In 1985, Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, established the British National Space Centre (BNSC), encouraged by these commercial successes. However, the BNSC request for commiserate budget and authority were ignored, and it remained a coordinating body with no ‘executive function’. It was not until 2010 that the UK shifted its strategic aims towards positioning itself as a key space player again, when a national strategy was published, alongside the establishment of the UK Space Agency (UKSA).
What does this history indicate? Throughout the British experience in space, there has long been a lack of agreement about the purpose and utility of a national space programme. It has thus been subject to dramatic policy shifts driven by political cycles. Until a recently announced reorganisation which will see UKSA folded into the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Agency took a market-led approach to building space capability, aiming to foster a favourable environment for the space industry rather than driving a nationally led programme. Policies which focus on space as a driver of economic growth could be considered reasonable when the geopolitical environment and alliances are stable.
With the addition of significant cuts at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), there is a growing necessity for Britain to develop a level of operational independence to continue assured access to space-based capability and to keep its critical infrastructure secure. The dependence of our daily lives on Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems is much discussed in the space sector. However, it is far less well understood across the wider population. PNT capability is critical to services ranging from weather forecasting, to financial transactions, to satellite navigation applications on mobile phones.
The unreliability of access to space-based assets not only has commercial implications – such as the oft-quoted London Economics report of a cost to the UK economy of £1 billion per day given a five-day disruption to PNT access – it also speaks to wider national security concerns. This important infrastructure is under direct threat; for example, broadening geopolitical instability has led to an increase in incidents of jamming and spoofing maritime logistics and aircraft navigation signals. This increases the vulnerability of supply chains and the cost of global trade, and places British citizens at risk.
Regardless of one’s perspective, few could argue that this moment has not been coming. It has traditionally proven easier to not come down on one side of these debates in the hope that one can have it all. This next phase of UK space policy will have to resolve these policy tensions, as uncomfortable and controversial as these choices may be. National leadership should articulate clearly what purpose British space activity will serve and how it will achieve that aim, and commit the resources required to secure it. The timeframe for decision making is closing. Choices can either be made to prepare for the coming economic and geopolitical shifts, or they will be made for the UK. This is the challenge British policymakers now face.
Michelle Howard is a strategic policy adviser, serving as Director of Perigord Consultancy Limited. She is also pursuing a PhD in Defence Studies at King’s College London.
This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Advantage Cell.
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