Today is the first day of the UK Space Conference in Belfast and we are delighted to announce that the UK is aiming to join Portugal and Spain as a member of the Atlantic Constellation and is contributing a new pathfinder satellite designed and built by a UK-based company adding to the innovative Earth and coastal monitoring and data sharing network. The Atlantic Constellation is a flagship, global project for the development of a constellation of small satellites for Ocean, Earth and Climate monitoring.

The UK Space Agency is providing £3 million to support the build of the new pathfinder satellite, intended to be one of the first in the Constellation, with co-funding from Open Cosmos, based on the Harwell Space Campus in Oxfordshire. This new commitment will further strengthen the UK’s national capabilities in Earth observation technology and complement the UK’s contributions to the EU Copernicus programme, European Space Agency and bilateral missions. Find out more here