Exotopic today announced details of its launch of the breakthrough UK satellite mission, Give Me Some Space!, which is scheduled to take place in Q1 of 2026. The manifest of transformative technology onboard will demonstrate future UK space capabilities and accelerate high potential space ventures. They will include innovative spacecraft propulsion, vision systems for space robotics and thermal managements systems.
Give Me Some Space! is an industry SME-driven mission, delivered by Exotopic through a new approach for in-orbit demonstration (IOD). Mission passengers have paid just £45,000 to secure their spot on this fully managed mission where their needs are the primary mission goal, allowing their payloads to be tested throughout the entire mission life. This will ensure the UK’s most promising tech is given the best possible opportunity to successfully reach market at pace, boosting UK innovation and productivity. The mission itself is being delivered by Exotopic, Third Planet Orbital, Commercial Space Technologies and Alden Legal. The satellite will be built and operated from the UK.
The primarily venture-backed businesses includes:
Stars Edge testing novel thruster technology specially engineered to enable new missions operating in VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit). Stars Edge Founder, Sara Alao, said: “We’re thrilled to be part of the ‘Give Me Some Space!’ mission, which represents a pivotal step in showcasing the UK’s leadership in space innovation. Testing our novel VLEO thruster technology on-orbit will accelerate not just our development but the potential for transformative satellite missions worldwide. This mission reflects the power of collaboration within the UK space sector, driving bold ideas from concept to orbit”
Naicker Scientific will demonstrate custom designed power electronics for Pulsar Fusion’s next generation Hall Effect Thruster, alongside novel active thermal management technology to enable very high-power space electronics. Naicker Scientific founder and recent winner of the Aqualunar Challenge Prize, Lolan Naicker, said the mission is “A rare opportunity for an early-stage company like us to affordably demonstrate our design capabilities and products in a space environment – helping us bridge that treacherous divide between initial product development and commercialisation”.
Lodestar will fly its “TESSERACT” mission; validating a custom-built edge compute stack and sensor suite for on-orbit robotic capture. It will also serve as a testbed for on-orbit validation of Lodestar’s machine learning models. “Our TESSERACT mission aboard GMSS will validate critical on-board real‑time targeting, pose estimation, and 3D reconstruction of a target, accelerating our autonomous capture technology. This mission spotlights our UK‑developed edge‑compute stack and close‑RPOD sensor suite: the eyes and brain of our capture system,” said Thomas Santini, Lodestar Co-founder & CTO.
Orbit Fab will be flying the valve core for RAFTI, a satellite re-fuelling port that will allow their customers to refuel their spacecraft on-orbit, extending their operating lives and kickstarting an in-space services industry.
Applied Atomics will demonstrate technologies for a dual-modal water / electric in-space propulsion unit.
Nascent Semiconductor providing specialist Silicon-Carbide semiconductor electronics to enable powerful and reliable systems in space.
The satellite will also be carrying an optical payload funded by Nurjana Technologies and built by Australian outfit Infinity Avionics, to demonstrate Nurjana’s advanced algorithms and Space Domain Awareness capabilities, whilst providing Exotopic with a unique on-orbit education and training capability for mission operators and downstream users of satellite imagery. These activities will ensure the UK continues to build strong partnerships on the global stage.
Exotopic CEO, Andy Grey, said, “We’ve been incredibly excited by the technology that we’ve been able to select to fly on this first mission. We’ve now put pen to paper and our partners are busy with spacecraft build and the final negotiations of our launch contract. This is a good news story for the whole of the UK space sector and we want to thank all those that have supported us to this point.”
Due to demand, Exotopic also announced that it is recruiting passengers for a second mission to launch in 2026 alongside confirmed passenger MagDrive! This mission will extend to European and other international SMEs that can demonstrate high-growth potential.