皇冠体育app

皇冠体育app UK Space Agency is investing 拢4.12m in a National Propulsion Test Facility, giving the UK a new facility for space technology testing. 皇冠体育app facility will allow UK companies and academia to test and develop space propulsion engines. 皇冠体育app planned facility will be based at Westcott in Buckinghamshire, with its strong history of rocketry research for defence and space development, building on existing facilities.

皇冠体育app UK Space Agency investment will add new capabilities for the UK space sector. Government funding will:

• create a new vacuum facility at the Westcott propulsion test site. When used together with the existing industry owned rocket firing test cells, this will allow the simulation of high altitude testing of thrusters up to 2kN
• upgrade an existing industry owned test chamber to improve capabilities in the 25N thrust range
• open the facilities, alongside a smaller 1N thruster test chamber at the site, for the community to use

皇冠体育app UK鈥檚 Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), through its RAL Space facility will act as an independent broker for facility access. 皇冠体育app European Space Agency (ESA) will be advising and overseeing the initial detailed design phase before a review in the autumn to move to full implementation.

This investment builds on what is already a world-class UK space propulsion sector. One of the industry stakeholders in the project, offering their facilities as part of the National Propulsion Test Facility, is Moog-UK. Moog-UK鈥檚 LEROS 1b engine recently placed the NASA Juno spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter following a 5-year journey to the gas giant.

Katherine Courtney, Interim CEO of the UK Space Agency said 鈥淥ur investment in a National Space Propulsion Facility will add several new capabilities to the UK space sector and build upon what is already a world-class UK space propulsion sector.

Opening these facilities up to UK companies and academia will allow them to develop and test future propulsion engines. We hope this will develop the UK鈥檚 competitive edge in space propulsion and produce the next generation of propulsion engines. We hope that UK companies will continue to make successful contributions to international missions, such as the LEROS 1b engine involved in JUNO.鈥�

皇冠体育app new capability will allow cost-effective development and testing of even more impressive engines for interplanetary travel, as well as for the significant commercial telecommunications satellite market. Other UK users of the facility, via the Airborne Engineering test chamber, are expected to include Reaction Engines Limited, who are currently testing advanced rocket nozzle technology for the SABRE engine.

With the facility investment from the UK Space Agency, who will also chair the Steering Board for this national facility, and with STFC鈥檚 RAL Space team bringing experience of test facility management to the project, this is an excellent example of UK cross-government, industry and ESA collaboration which will benefit the immediate stakeholders involved in the project, as well as the wider propulsion community by opening access to the facility.

Additional to this, Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP are investing their own funding in an Innovation / Incubation Centre and a skills training hub 鈥� both of which will support the space sector. 皇冠体育appse investments have come about as a result of the commitment that Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP has demonstrated to support the growth of the space sector and is consistent with the Innovation and Growth Strategy aspiration for LEPs to use local funding to support the space sector.