May orders space race with EU after Brexit

THERESA MAY has ordered officials to start work on a British satellite-navigation system to rival the EU’s Galileo, in a show of strength as Brussels threatens to block the UK from its project.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, has signed off funding amounting to as much as £100million to “map out” plans for a post-Brexit UK satellite system, with an official announcement due this week.

The disclosure comes after the European Commission claimed that to allow continued UK involvement in Galileo after Brexit would threaten the EU’s security.

Graham Turnock, the chief executive of the UK Space Agency, told this newspaper that it looked increasingly unlikely that Europe would change its mind and grant access to Galileo, or allow British contractors to bid to help build future satellites.

Earlier this summer it emerged that some ministers were pushing for funds to begin investigating the feasibility of a UK satellite navigation system, amid the growing row with Brussels over access to Galileo. Now The Telegraph understands that Mr Hammond has signed off on that funding after the project was sanctioned by Mrs May. It is believed that the sum will come from a £3billion fund announced at last year’s Budget to help prepare for Brexit.

“We still want to be part of the Galileo project but we have got to prepare for all eventualities,” a Whitehall source said. They confirmed that the funding was for “mapping out how a sovereign satellite system would work”.

Britain has contributed €1.4billion (£1.2billion) to the EU’s 30-satellite network, which, once fully operational in 2020, will provide an alternative to the US GPS system and be used in everything from smartphones to security-critical military operations.

The Armed Forces are keen to access Galileo, as the US currently keeps back the best GPS service for its own military, and the UK has been developing Galileo’s critical encryption software.

But the European Commission claims that it will damage security if Britain is granted access after Brexit and has begun to block the UK space industry from manufacturing the security elements of the satellite programme.

The Telegraph understands that the Government will announce contracts for a British alternative within the next few days. Speaking at the launch of the British-built Aeolus wind monitoring satellite at the European Spaceport in French Guiana, Mr Turnock told The

Telegraph: “We would like to continue to participate and we would still like a good outcome on Galileo but the signs I’m afraid are not terribly positive given the position and approach that the Commission has taken.”

Sam Gyimah, the science minister, and Greg Clark, the Business Secretary,

have vowed that Britain will build its own system should the EU refuse to allow UK to participate in Galileo.

Early feasibility work has been under way into a UK system since the spring and the UK Space Agency has said that a British alternative would be far cheaper than the €10billion (£9billion) cost of Galileo because most of the work has already been done in Britain.

The Government is also threatening to claw back the £875million already spent on the system.

But there are fears that Galileo is just the beginning, and Britain will be excluded from other European critical satellite systems, such as the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, which is managed by the Commission. Once complete, Copernicus will see a constellation of around 20 satellites placed in orbit by 2030 to monitor climate change, the weather, Earth’s atmosphere, crop production, marine life and provide eyes in the sky during emergencies such as fires and flooding.

However, industry experts are confident that Britain will not be excluded from European Space Agency (ESA) projects, which sit apart from the EU.

Richard Wimmer, project manager of the Aeolus satellite at Airbus in Stevenage, said: “Britain is still a key player in the ESA. With the expertise that the UK has built up, we are a big part of the space industry. The payload on Galileo was developed in the UK. You can’t say the UK can’t be involved when we own the technology.”