UK announces £1.4bn strategy to boost defence presence in space

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the investment was a bid to stay ‘one step ahead of our competitors’

The UK will invest £1.4 billion to bolster the number of British satellites in space as part of its first defence space strategy.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it was “crucial” that Britain pushes the “frontiers of our defence space ambitions” in a bid to stay “one step ahead of our competitors”.

As part of the public investment, £968 million will be committed over the next 10 years to deliver a multi-satellite system – known as the Istari programme – to support greater global surveillance and intelligence for military operations, the Ministry of Defence announced.

A further £61 million will explore cutting-edge laser communications technology to deliver data from space to Earth at a speed equivalent to superfast broadband.