Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in developing a UK position navigation and timing satellite and earth observation system; how much they have spent on developing this project to date; and how much funding they plan to invest in this in each of the next four years.

The 18-month UK Global Navigation Satellite System Programme successfully concluded its work to develop outline proposals for a conventional satellite navigation system in September. £92m was originally allocated for the UK GNSS Programme and work has concluded successfully under budget.

Work completed by the UK Space Agency so far has developed cutting edge British expertise in areas such as spacecraft and antenna design, satellite and ground control systems, systems engineering and simulation, which have wider applications across the space sector, in addition to supporting specialist UK jobs and industrial GNSS capability. The new Space Based PNT Programme will build on this work to consider newer, more innovative ideas of delivering global ‘sat nav’ and secure satellite services to meet public, government, and industry needs. SBPP will be funded from existing budgets, UKSA are feeding into the Comprehensive Spending Review, which is currently running across government.

Separately, the UK Space Agency has begun to consider plans for a national Earth Observation capability, whilst we continue to negotiate for participation in the EU’s Copernicus Earth Observation System.