ESA UK
At the ESA (European Space Agency) Council Meeting at Ministerial level in November 2008, ESA and British National Space Centre (now the UK Space Agency) concluded an ‘agreement in principle’ for the Agency to establish a permanent presence at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
The facility at Harwell is a new departure for ESA, as it is the first time that it has set up for business at an existing large science and technology facility. Officially inaugurated by ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain on 22nd July 2009, the centre’s manager is Martin Ditter.
It is part of the ESA vision to embed the ESA facility into a wider International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC).
International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC)
The International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) is a new initiative funded jointly by the public sector and industry. It will help focus the UK's considerable, but currently fragmented, strength in the space sector, contributing to the goal of doubling the UK space market by 2020.
ISIC will provide a new environment where government, universities and industry can work together to make the most of scientific opportunities and create new technologies, applications, and Intellectual Property (IP) that exploits UK, European and Global Space Programmes.
ISIC will be an integral component of the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. It will link space activities with the breadth of research undertaken on our world-leading large facilities such as the Diamond Light Source and the ISIS neutron spallation source.
ISIC will act as a portal for international access, partnership and collaboration and a melting pot for ideas driven by open innovation.
More about the Harwell science and innovation campus, (link opens in a new window)ISIC and existing space activities at Harwell. (PDF - 51kB - link opens in a new window)
Earth Observation Hub for ISIC
The Science and Technology Facilities Council, which is leading the ISIC project, has recently [21 July 2010] awarded a contract to form the first key element of the ISIC, an Earth Observation (EO) Hub. (PDF - 506kB - link opens in a new window) The £4.9m contract has been awarded to a consortium led by top space company Astrium to develop an end-to-end operations centre on the Harwell campus with the ability to run cost effective satellite flight operations and payload data processing and exploitation. The EO Hub will pave the way for a better understanding of our planet and growth in the industrial sector underpinning this work.
For more information on ISIC please download the brochure below.
|ISIC brochure (PDF - 506Kb - opens in a new window)
