Global Collaboration in Space Through the Eyes of ESA and UKSA

Editor’s note: Orbital Today’s intrepid journalist, Hannah Dowling, reports from Glasgow at the first Space Comm Expo Scotland. She’ll be covering everything from global collaboration in space to the latest in progress in launch from Scotland.

The European Space Agency and UK Space Agency have both shared key thoughts on the importance – and difficulties – of global collaboration in space. The agencies’ officials took to the stage at Space Comm Expo Scotland to share their views.

ESA and UKSA: Navigating Global Space Partnerships

Given the lack of borders and jurisdiction in space, it is widely acknowledged that international collaboration is crucial for governments to develop, service, and protect their assets in space.

Speaking on a panel at the inaugural 2024 Space Comm Expo Scotland in Glasgow on Wednesday, UK Space Agency chief of staff Dr Sarah Jane Gill acknowledged this fact, and noted that as a founding member of ESA, “collaboration is in our blood, it’s how we do business”.

“Collaboration is a cornerstone of what we do,” she added.

Gill reiterated UKSA’s primary goals of boosting prosperity, understanding the universe, and protecting the planet and outer space, and shared that global counterparts strive to reach the same goals. 

“We were in Egypt last week attending a conference about space in the Middle East and Africa,” she said, “and what we have found is that wherever in the world we go, our ambitions are the same and our challenges are the same,” she said. 

Meanwhile, Dr David Parker, former CEO of the UK Space Agency and current development manager for the European Space Agency’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications, revealed that international co-operation, while essential, is “certainly not easy”.

“It involves a sustained effort over a long period of time to build up relationships and make them work,” he shared, nothing that such effort can be deeply impacted by changes in the geopolitical environment.

“10 years ago, as Chief Executive of UK Space Agency, I was travelling on a Virgin Atlantic 747, with the prime minister at one end, and all other officials in the other, and industry in between,” he shared. “And we were all going off to China to discuss international collaboration in space and science. 

“So, things change and perspectives change.”

Despite such complications, Dr Parker shared that there are “still important space collaborations” ongoing with China and the UK, including SMILE.

“The key is, you’ve got to think about…how do you work together with different cultures, different space agencies, different ways of working,” he said. “I can tell you right now the Russian Space Agency and NASA, operate completely differently.”

Elsewhere in his commentary, Dr Parker said that space applications and technology are “rarely the single answer to a challenge, but is very often a vital part of the answer to many, many challenges”.