September

News: Orbex in process of Site Selection

Orbex (@orbexspace) announced on twitter earlier this month that they are in the process of looking for a “large new launch vehicle production facility & mission control centre close to our consortium’s primary launch site in Scotland”.   Just in case you missed it, Orbex secured £30 million funding in July to develop their orbital space launch system. They are part of the main consortium that will be providing launch services from Sutherland.

News: First Data from Aeolus Wind Monitoring Satellite 

Some of you will know that we at Space Network Scotland have a personal interest in the new Aeolus wind measuring satellite which was launched in August, and which has just delivered its first data. We’d just like to add our congratulations to the many people who have worked on this project over the years. Ok, we’re biased, but we think this is a notable and potentially important first for European space. Check out the video.

Opportunity: SPINTERN intern programme

The Space Internship programme - SPINTERN - provides funding for companies to offer internships to recent graduates or post-grads, early in the new calendar year, to work on a specific project.  The programme has been running for several years and is a proven and successful way to investigate potential employees of the future.

The application process is intended to be proportionately ‘light touch’, and this year has two focuses – Earth Observation and, for the first time, Spaceflight.  Note: it is not just limited to ‘hard science’ projects.

Opportunity: Alba Orbital offering free Launch

New Space pricing! Alba Orbital have just announced an offering of a free launch on a flight-proven rocket when you purchase a Unicorn-2 platform. Offer open until 31st December. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Here is a link to a Stanley Kubrick Style video of the Alba Orbital vision.

Opportunity: Scotland’s Blue Growth Data Challenge

Orkney is home to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). This is the world’s only accredited centre offering full scale, grid-connected test facilities for developers of wave and tidal energy devices.

This year, EMEC are making their datasets openly available for anyone to explore for the first time ever! The Blue Growth Data Challenge is a competition to design new data products for local and global marine environments that use the EMEC data set.

This challenge is supported by  Highlands & Islands Enterprise, the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications (SoXSA), The Data Lab & the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

Opportunity: Cyber Essentials 

During the recent well-attended Future Space Supply Chain meeting organised by ADS Scotland, procurement manager Martin Lee stated that companies who work with Airbus must be Cyber Essential accredited.

For those of you not yet accredited there are a number of bodies and companies in Scotland who will provide assistance in this area – with three highlighted here

• Net Defence - part of the Ogilvie Group, a 65 year old Scottish founded company that protects both data security and corporate assets (including humidity control for aerospace). Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 
• SICSA, the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance have a Cyber Nexus which runs events and workshops.   Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  
  
• The Scottish Cyber Security cluster led by Martin Beaton can be contacted via the following twitter link. 

Event: Edinburgh Space Technology MeetUp Group – Edinburgh 10th October

Following their successful first meeting, the second Meetup will take place in CodeClan’s Edinburgh centre. There will be speakers from Skyrora, an Edinburgh based company who is rapidly developing a commercial rocket-launch system aimed at the innovative smallsat sector. Also speaking will be the European Space Agencies’ newly appointed Scottish and Northern Irish business ambassador, and hosts CodeClan.

There are a few open mic slots available to give a quick 60 second introduction about yourselves, your work, any challenges you are facing or a pitch about your business

Event: Space Monitoring of Green Environment in London – 16th October

If you have capability/interest in earth observation from space for mapping and monitoring of “green infrastructure” in London, then you have till the 8th of October to register for a Space4Climate meeting on the 16th October.

Event - Enabling New Space – London 19th October 

Organised by techUK, the IET and the KTN, this New Space event covers developments in the Space Segment and the Ground Segment.

Requirements for Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) systems may be very different for satellites of $1.5m rather than $300m. New Space user antennas will likely have to re-acquire connections to perhaps thousands of small satellites – and do so affordably.

The opportunities for getting New Space right are enormous, as lower cost, lower latency, quicker-to-market satellites will open up new commercial applications. But this requires that each element must deliver - technically, on time, and to cost.

Event: DemoFest – Bringing Research to Life – Edinburgh 6th November

Now in its 11th year, this event showcases the very best of Informatics and Computing Science research from all of Scotland’s Universities. DemoFest 2018 will focus on the following key areas: Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Cyber-Security, Networking & The Cloud, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Understanding Complex Systems, and User-Experience.