24 September 2014 – The Centre for Defence Enterprise is launching a competition which will provide £1 million worth of research funding. It will seek proof-of-concept research proposals for novel technologies that could lead to a step change in UK military space-based capability or substantially reduce the cost of the systems.
This competition will fund exploratory studies and demonstrations to develop concepts and technologies required for delivering a UK space-based military capability. A smaller number of successful projects will be taken forward for further development.
Areas of particular interest include:
- technologies providing wide-area surveillance combined with ways of detecting small objects of interest
- technologies providing very frequent or persistent coverage to observe short-lived events
- methods for detecting concealed objects
- technologies to provide secure communications using hand-held terminals from hard-to-reach locations
- secure use of existing commercial space infrastructures
The Centre for Defence Enterprise is also interested in reducing build and operating costs. Cost reduction should be achieved without reducing reliability or assurance of systems. The Centre particularly welcomes proposals that investigate the use of:
- novel platform technologies, including on-orbit propulsion and power systems, but excluding launch
- novel payload technologies, including deployable structures
The competition opens on 22 October 2014, at which point the competition document will be published on https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cde-themed-competition-affordable-space-based-capability.
The competition closes on Tuesday 6 January 2015 at 5pm.
Visit the competition website page for further details