UK spend big on SATCOM, but bundle other space capabilities

The UK will prioritise satellite communications (SATCOM) above all else in its space defence strategy over the next ten years.

In its long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP), published on 30 June, the Government revealed that it will spend £2.3bn ($3bn) on SATCOM. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will also bundle several other crucial space-based capabilities into one £880m pot – more than two-and-a-half times smaller than its SATCOM funding.

These other capabilities include space control and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets.

Ordinarily, this breakdown is to be expected given the sheer cost needed to run and harden military SATCOM in orbit. In fact, the 2022 space strategy spent £5bn on SATCOM alone.

But conflict trends in Ukraine have shown the importance of information-gathering in space for its ongoing deep strike campaign, which some observers have found to be turning the tide of the war against Russia. Likewise, space control is proving to be a crucial focus as adversaries threaten to destroy Western space-based capabilities.

But these factors do not appear to change the enduring cost gap between SATCOM and other significant space requirements. This latest allocation may not reflect the tactics playing out in a domain that has become a “contested frontline” in its own right, as the Government acknowledge in the DIP itself.

Efficiencies made to SATCOM

One major announcement from the DIP is the cancelled narrowband capability.

What was once meant to be a sovereign capability will now be offset by a Space-as-a-Service model, where a commercial company will provide the UK military with a narrowband SATCOM capability.

In conjunction, the UK will also upgrade the existing Skynet 5 constellation, which is already capable of delivering UHF. Airbus, the original equipment manufacturer of the constellation, told Airforce Technology that it will continue to support the MoD in its use of Skynet 5.

Typically, military units opt for narrowband communications when tactical survival, speed of movement, or physical terrain obstacles override the need for the heavy data provided by wideband.

Sacrifice sovereignty

While there is some clarity when it comes to delivering future SATCOM, there is almost nothing said about other space-based capabilities.

ISR is a signficant part of this but there is not much more than a pledge to pursue sovereign systems with no discernable budget. These programmes likely refer to ongoing constellations such as the UK’s Tyche and Oberon earth observation.  

The dual-use Earth-observation satellite market, valued at $726m in 2026, will increase to $849m by 2036.

With no explicit breakdown in funding or plan of action, the UK may eventually need to rely on other cheaper alternatives to conduct space-based information gathering. Applying the Space-as-a-Service model to ISR, the UK could increase its capability through commercial suppliers, like Finland’s ICEYE.

Damon Olloman, company vice president for missions in the UK and Canada, said that not everything has to be done in “one big, expensive go.”

Instead, commercial satellites shared among European allies can complement UK sovereign satellites.

Yet the DIP’s lack of detail has prompted industry to look for opportunities beyond the UK’s sovereign programmes. Speaking to this reporter after the document’s release, Olloman suggested that there may be opportunity when those sovereign satellites come to the end of their life in the next five to seven years.

“That will fall right into the window of where these budgets are,” he stated. “They’ll have to have follow-on programmes if the UK is to keep up, and I think the budget figure here allows for that.”

Work in progress

Certain programmes of record are easy to touch upon. There is solid data behind the Global Combat Air Programme, the Navy knows where it stands with Type 83, but “they’re all named things”, Olloman pointed out.

There a few specific space projects that are tangible, and where its value is deployed directly. The DIP explores inserting space into the Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) concept, for example. But little is said on what this will look like in practical terms beyond the use of AI integratign space-based information into the Digital Targeting Web.

“Skynet is a named thing for space, but the rest of space is so brand new, it’s in development, it’s like we don’t have these products coming along as the other parts of defence,” Olloman noted.

It is likely that the Ministry of Defence is playing for time, waiting to see the success and efficacy of emerging capabilities before it decides to invest. But this is a fool’s game, as Ukraine demonstrates, the pace of innovation in conflict means defence technologies are always developing.