“The UK Space Agency will cease to exist as an independent entity to cut the cost of bureaucracy, the government said on Wednesday.
It will be absorbed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in April 2026.
The government says this will save money, cut duplication and ensure ministerial oversight.
But one leading space scientist said the move would lead to disruption in the short term and the UK losing ground to its international competitors over the long run.”
warriorscot on
This is a very good move, a lot of the core work is done by regulators at the CAA or civil servants at DSIT and DfT. UKSA in a lot of ways was largely very superfluous, added a lot of friction due to some fairly headstrong senior leadership that was really quite redundant. And duplicated technical functions that existed elsewhere or should really have been elsewhere simply because that’s where the rest of the technical expertise was.
It also wasn’t very good at it’s job, not as bad as it was a decade or so ago, but the progress has been glacial, the Virgin Orbit project was a classic boondoggle, that wasted a huge amount of money and the writing was on the wall before the launch and was a money pit before it.
PeachPosted on
ditching the independent space agency is total bs, mate
UpsidedownEngineer on
Seems like a poorly advised move considering that space is becoming increasingly important to various strategic and civilian priorities to the UK and at the same time, the United States is reducing their space funding.
Also while I understand that Virgin Orbit no longer exists, wouldn’t the regulatory framework for it be applicable to other upcoming launchers like Skyora. It would be ideal to keep the agency.
I wonder what the logic behind this move actually was.
peakedtooearly on
We should see if the Europeans would be interested in doing something jointly…oh, wait… 😆
menerell on
Treasure fleet moment! They’ll regret it in the future.
6 Comments
“The UK Space Agency will cease to exist as an independent entity to cut the cost of bureaucracy, the government said on Wednesday.
It will be absorbed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in April 2026.
The government says this will save money, cut duplication and ensure ministerial oversight.
But one leading space scientist said the move would lead to disruption in the short term and the UK losing ground to its international competitors over the long run.”
This is a very good move, a lot of the core work is done by regulators at the CAA or civil servants at DSIT and DfT. UKSA in a lot of ways was largely very superfluous, added a lot of friction due to some fairly headstrong senior leadership that was really quite redundant. And duplicated technical functions that existed elsewhere or should really have been elsewhere simply because that’s where the rest of the technical expertise was.
It also wasn’t very good at it’s job, not as bad as it was a decade or so ago, but the progress has been glacial, the Virgin Orbit project was a classic boondoggle, that wasted a huge amount of money and the writing was on the wall before the launch and was a money pit before it.
ditching the independent space agency is total bs, mate
Seems like a poorly advised move considering that space is becoming increasingly important to various strategic and civilian priorities to the UK and at the same time, the United States is reducing their space funding.
Also while I understand that Virgin Orbit no longer exists, wouldn’t the regulatory framework for it be applicable to other upcoming launchers like Skyora. It would be ideal to keep the agency.
I wonder what the logic behind this move actually was.
We should see if the Europeans would be interested in doing something jointly…oh, wait… 😆
Treasure fleet moment! They’ll regret it in the future.