2 November 2015 – Success for Harwell-based Oxford Space Systems (OSS) continues with the winning of two national awards at the National British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEAs) 2015, which took place in London on 29 October. Now in its sixth year, the awards are intended to celebrate the breadth of the UK’s engineering excellence. The awards saw OSS not only awarded UK Start Up of the Year but the “winner of winners” Grand Prix Trophy.

The judges stated that OSS had, “demonstrated everything one could hope for from a start-up; a viable range of innovative products and demand for its technology from the global space industry. Oxford Space Systems are a huge success story for UK manufacturing plc and an example to other companies of how to identify and exploit a market opportunity.’’

Mike Lawton, CEO & founder said: “Winning one award was unexpected but to come home with the Grand Prix Trophy was simply fantastic. It’s great the UK space sector is being recognised for the challenging and innovative engineering it needs to deliver to keep the UK competitive. And for OSS as a start up to receive the recognition is great endorsement to the teams’ achievement and the technology were bringing to market.”

Venture capital backed Oxford Space Systems, which recently closed its second round fund raise with an additional £1.3m of investment is developing a range of proprietary of deployable structures that are lower cost, lighter and less complex than those in current demand. Uniqueness comes from the proprietary flexible composite material the company has developed for demanding environments combined with the skills of a world leading expert in origami.

OSS has already signed five ‘significant’ development contracts and says its success mantra includes having a ‘genuinely innovative and disruptive technology, strong backing from sector-savvy investors and growing demand in the US, the UK and Asian markets.

The company is on course to set a record for the space industry by going from idea to orbit in a little under 3 years with the first launch of its AstroTube boom technology on a small UK Space Agency satellite scheduled for launch next year.