The European Space Agency celebrated its most recent launch of a Copernicus Sentinel Satellite, which made me wonder how Brexit had impacted the UK’s participation in the EU’s space programmes. This post looks at what I found.
On visiting the Design Museum’s Living on Mars exhibition (a couple of years ago, I was surprised to learn how peripherally involved the UK was in the European Space Agency (ESA). I decided to look up the extent of the divorce and found UK involvement in the EU Space Programme on Gov.UK. According to HMG, there are four programmes and the UK has withdrawn from (or been kicked out of) two. It remains members or participants in Copernicus (until 2027) and the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EUSST) programme together with the ESA which is not an EU organisation.
The Copernicus project also reported on the launch.
The featured image: Artist’s impression of MetOp Second Generation satellites in orbit. Sentinel‑5 instruments will be hosted on the A-series platform, from the Copernicus web site. Credit: EUMETSAT.