Delivery Plan
2014-2019
To innovate for a better world,
empowered by satellites
sa.catapult.org.uk
Table of Contents
1.0 Satellite Applications Market Overview
3
1.1 Introduction and Mission
3
1.2 The Market, Innovation and Growth
3
1.3 Challenges and Opportunities for Innovators
5
2.0 Our Vision, Strategy and Measures for Success
7
2.1 Vision and Strategy
7
2.2 Energising the Market
7
2.3 Empowering the Technology
8
2.4 Enabling Business
9
2.5 Establishing World-Class Facilities
10
2.6 Attracting and Developing Top Talent
10
2.7 Building a UK Focus, with Global Reach
11
2.8 The Catapult Difference – The Pursuit of Impact
12
2.9 Measures of Success
14
3.0 Executing the Strategy
15
3.1 Energising the Market
15
3.2 Empowering the Technology
17
3.3 Enabling Business
21
3.4 Establishing World-class Facilities
22
3.5 Attracting and Developing Top Talent
25
3.6 Building a UK Focus, with Global Reach
26
4.0 Increasing our Impact
29
4.1 First Year
30
4.2 Delivering Long-term Impact
30
4.3 Targets to Increase our Impact
33
2
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
1.0 Satellite Applications Market Overview
In July 2013, Europe’s largest and most sophisticated
telecommunications satellite was launched successfully
into orbit. Known as Alphasat, this satellite was built for
London-based commercial services provider Inmarsat,
in partnership with the European Space Agency.
The essential on-board communications system, or
‘Payload’, was provided by Astrium UK, of Stevenage.
In total, more than 100 hi-tech UK businesses, mostly
SMEs, contributed to the supply chain.
Through this straightforward statement, we place the
Catapult right at the heart of the transformation in
satellite services, and evoke thoughts of global impact
through the power of satellites to bring solutions to the
challenges of both a modern and a developing world.
Throughout the remainder of this document, we explain
how we will deliver on that mission.
©ESA
1.1 Introduction and Mission
This single story highlights, very powerfully, the strength
and vibrancy of the UK space sector. In particular,
it demonstrates the appetite to invest in satellite
technology for the real-world benefits that it delivers.
Alphasat is more than just about putting world-class
technology into space. It’s about delivering worldleading services on the ground, in the air, and out at
sea. This is where the UK excels.
Of course, this is not an isolated story. Since the
Satellite Applications Catapult was established, in May
2013, there has been a tremendous response to the
services we offer, and engagement continues to be right
at the top end of expectations. As a consequence, the
need to establish the organisation, build and grow the
team, develop and deliver our core offerings – whilst at
the same time managing and responding to the huge
demand from our user and stakeholder groups – has
been a challenge. Nonetheless, we have come a long
way in a very short time, and through this first update
of our five-year delivery plan, we take the opportunity to
review our progress and update future plans.
During the course of our first year, our ‘Mission’
has matured in both its simplicity and its ambition.
It now reads:
“To innovate for a better world,
empowered by satellites”
sa.catapult.org.uk
1.2 The Market, Innovation, and Growth
The UK’s Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (IGS),
first published in February 2010 and recently updated,
has created real momentum in our sector. It has
brought industry, academia and Government together
around the common cause of driving economic growth,
and has provided the foundation for a transition of
the UK Space sector from a niche industry to a hightechnology, mainstream, industrial sector.
The Space Growth Action Plan (GAP) re-affirms
the role of the Catapult in implementing the original
recommendations, and identifies new actions that are
needed to maintain momentum. The global space
economy was worth £150bn in 2013 and is projected
to grow to £400bn by 2030. The target set in 2010 was
to grow the UK’s share of the World space economy to
10% by 2030, representing a UK sector worth £40bn
per annum and the creation of 100,000 new jobs.
3
Satellite Applications Market Overview
A key finding of the new Space GAP is that in order
to deliver the expected growth of the sector, the UK
will need to grow the current level of exports of space
technology and services from the current £2bn to an
estimated £25bn; i.e. from 22% of the sector, to around
60%. Most of this needs to come from the applications
and services sector. This will clearly require a major shift
in the focus.
The Catapult will play its part in this growth as illustrated
below. We will stimulate, catalyse and make a strong
contribution by driving new cycles of industry growth
and innovation.
Satellites provide widely enabling technologies such as
positioning, communication and observation that are
applicable across many sectors and facilitate market
specific applications to be developed on top of them.
The big successes for the satellite sector will arise
when new innovations that influence the underlying
technologies can be applied across many markets.
Such technological innovations will enable businesses
to respond to major social trends and deliver value
Catapult Impact
£Mx10s
Catapult Impact
£Mx100s
across all aspects of society, from cities through to
remote and rural areas, supporting integrated transport,
the digital economy and a sustainable future.
Working with the Space Innovation Growth Strategy
team, we have jointly identified five key areas where
satellite technologies and specifically the Satellite
Applications Catapult can have the greatest impact.
The relative opportunity size weighted by relevance
of our intervention is outlined in the figure to the right.
Many of the Catapult’s efforts and resources including
programmes, technology themes and facilities are
mapped to these key markets in the figure. Our initial
market focus in maritime and transport allows us to
address many of the key areas and pull technical
innovations from our technology themes, that are
applicable across markets, closer to commercialisation.
“Innovation is a contact sport”
AnnaLee Saxenian, UC Berkeley
Catapult Impact
£Mx1000s
45,000
40,000
35,000
UK Turnover (£M)
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
-
Year
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
UK turnover global share up to 10% (£M)
Catapult Impact
UK turnover without IGS (£M)
4
Projected growth of the UK
space economy with the
Catapult making a strong
contribution to IGS targets
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
IGS
£
Market Areas
“Learning and
innovation go hand in
hand. The arrogance of
success is to think that
what you did yesterday
will be sufficient for
tomorrow.”
M2M
Maritime
Satellite
Broadband
Finance &
Insurance
Transport
Galileo PRS
Smart Cities
Secure
Sat - Comms
24/7
Surveillance
Broadband to
Ships & Planes
Agriculture
William Pollard
UAVs
Energy
Access
Disaster
Recovery
Forecast
Energy
Infrastructure
Location-based
Services
Polar Shipping
Game Changing
Services
Climate &
Environment
More efficient
Public Services
Security,
Safety &
Resilience
e-connectivity
- Maritime
- Transport
- Agri-Tech
- SSGP
- Security &
Resilience
- Energy
- Maritime
- Transport
- Future Cities
- Agri-Tech
- Security &
Resilience
- SSGP (Space
for Smarter
Government
Program)
Focus of our activities against IGS market
areas to enable wide impact. The size of
the boxes in the IGS market is indicative
of the size of the opportunity weighted by
relevance of Catapult intervention.
Market Programmes
- Maritime
- Transport
- Future Cities
- Energy
- Maritime
- Future Cities
- Energy
- Future Cities
- Transport
- SSGP
- Security &
Resilience
- Energy
Also shown are select Catapult
programmes, technology themes and
facilities to show their wide enabling impact.
Green highlights an important focus for the
Catapult.
Tech Themes / Facilities
Ops Centre
PRS
CEMS
Mission Comms
OSA
M2M
1.3 C
hallenges and Opportunities
for Innovators
All innovators face challenges, regardless of the sector
they operate in. However, there are challenges unique
to satellite applications, which are particularly inhibiting
to new entrants in our sector. Helping to address
these quickly and effectively will enable unrealised
opportunities, reduce risk, and enhance prospects
for growth. These challenges, alongside the major
opportunities that are opening up, define the capabilities
we will need to develop to support our innovator
community.
While most growth in the UK space sector is projected
to come from downstream satellite applications, those
sa.catapult.org.uk
businesses rely inherently on upstream assets. This results
in a unique set of challenges in addition to those faced by
any other innovative business, which includes physically
getting your product to space and navigating the complex
national and international regulatory environment.
We have identified and are working to address the
following key blocking issues:
•Regulatory Issues – insurance and licensing is
prohibitive in the UK
•Risk perceptions – people often unknowingly
consider the risk of working with space technologies
to be high
5
Satellite Applications Market Overview
•Awareness – most organisations don’t think of
satellites when looking for solutions
•
Cost – satellite data and services are perceived to be
expensive, while innovations are bringing costs down
•Access – reliable satellite data and services for
non-experts will open up the sector
•Timeliness – improvements in real-time access and
downlink will improve uptake.
1.3.1 Disrupting Established Markets
In a call to entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, founder of PayPal,
Tesla, and SpaceX, highlighted the opportunity inherent
in disrupting established markets, “I’d advise that
people consider arenas outside the internet. There’s a
lot of opportunity in other industries, especially ones
that have been dominated by a monopoly or oligopoly.
When an industry has had an absence of new entrants,
it has a lack of innovation”. This can make it hard to
initially open up the rigid supply chains but does give
opportunities for new players to come in and shake
things up. The internet, by contrast, is already wellsaturated with start-ups, to the point where innovation
starts to mean tiny, incremental things.
Space and satellite applications have historically
been the business of governments and large industry
contracts, but they are now opening up. With the lack
of new entrants limiting competition, until recently
innovation remained low and prices have remained
high. Recent innovations are offering opportunities for
private enterprise like never before, such as; the cost of
access to space, new low-cost satellite constellations
and improved usability, accessibility and timeliness of
data. These opportunities require new people to engage
with the sector to develop new businesses and ways of
working.
By addressing the challenges and capitalising on
the opportunities, the Catapult aims to speed up the
emergence of entrepreneurs and new business models
to the space sector, thereby increasing innovation and
economic growth.
6
1.3.2 Changing Public Perception
There is a view that space is high-cost and discretionary
and there is very little awareness in our public
consciousness of the fantastic progress that has been
made in the commercialisation of space, especially in
the UK.
Many children of the 60’s and 70’s who studied
engineering and sciences will admit to having been
inspired by the Apollo programme and the early space
pioneers. This engenders a high-cost, discretionary
view when today, through companies like SpaceX, it
is actually becoming accessible and the domain of
commercial private enterprise.
The £9bn UK space economy, which supports 25,000
employees and a further 60,000 indirectly, is one of
the least subsidised parts of the UK economy in a
traditionally big government arena.
Raising awareness of the opportunities from satellite
applications is important. We now have a generation of
decision makers and influencers in all facets of society
who have a very incomplete and indeed negative
perception about what space does for the economy.
Though a few satellite technologies are well-known
to the public such as TV and GPS, space is often
deemed a discretionary cost, rather than an increasingly
essential asset.
To be effective in our mission, we need to educate,
to change perceptions and provide solutions to the
blockers so that our satellite application innovators can
be successful. These are not by any means the only
difficulties that innovators in space face, but they do
give a flavour of the types of unique challenges to be
overcome and the opportunities available.
n
“If I’d asked my customers what
they wanted, they’d have asked for
a faster horse.”
Henry Ford
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
2.0Our Vision, Strategy and Measures
for Success
2.1 Vision and Strategy
Energi
sing
ss
ling busine
Enab
te
ch
nolo
gy
• Empowering the Technology
Building a UK Focus,
with Global Reach
e
th
• Energising the Market
Establishing
world-class
facilities
g
The first three strategic elements, represented by the
red arrows around the wheel (opposite), relate to the
impact we aim to deliver within our target community:
Attracting
and developing
top talent
Emp
o
we
rin
Our strategy comprises six elements, which together
describe how we intend to deliver the ambition set
out in our Vision.
m
t
“To be a world-leading technology
and innovation company, helping
businesses of all sizes to realise the
potential from space. By embracing
a pioneering, agile, collaborative
and entrepreneurial spirit, we create
valued partnerships to deliver
game-changing results”
t he
ke
ar
Our vision is :
2.2 Energising the Market
In order to grow the sector, we need to increase
demand for the services that it offers. The UK space
sector is becoming increasingly dynamic, with the
non-space sector leading the way in the adoption of
satellite services. However we need to unlock latent
demand, create new demand and drive exports. We
will provide the fuel for this transformation by:
• Enabling Business.
The second three elements of our strategy, shown by
the blue segments at the heart of the wheel, concern
the foundations we need to build and sustain within
the Catapult so we can deliver that impact:
• Establishing World-Class Facilities
• Attracting and Developing Top Talent
• Building a UK Focus, with Global Reach.
The following paragraphs expand on these six core
strategic elements, followed by a view of why we are
different and how we work to drive economic growth.
sa.catapult.org.uk
•Promoting the sector and its capabilities. We
aim to work with the sector and take the lead in
activities to promote the capabilities of satellites,
encouraging non-space businesses and potential
users to “think space” and engage with the sector.
•Creating awareness and engaging
stakeholder communities to drive application
commercialisation in particular growth markets. In
specific markets we must create awareness and
solicit user needs by orchestration of activities
with users, innovators, suppliers and application
developers. We need to encourage applications
to be developed on top of enabling technologies,
pulling them closer to commercialisation.
7
Our Vision, Strategy and Measures for Success
To achieve impact on the economy, we must encourage
commercial usage and develop new end customers.
Where appropriate, these engagements will leverage
other funding to undertake market-led research and
development. Over the lifetime of this five-year plan,
investment will come from customers, the Catapult
itself, UK Space Agency, Technology Strategy Board,
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), devolved
administrations, European Space Agency (ESA),
European Commission (primarily Horizon 2020) and
Research Councils.
Our real economic impact, and that for the community,
happens when projects generate business growth.
Real success for us is when we exit an initiative and set
it free.
and terrestrial systems are seamlessly integrated,
innovations are taking place in all aspects of satellite
technologies. Costs are reducing and access
increasing. To capitalise on this, we need to support
development of new:
•Information services with remote sensing
technology:
Led by technologies that support miniaturisation and
low cost missions are creating new opportunities
when combined with new business models and
improved ease of access and use of data.
•Location-based services with enhanced
satellite navigation:
All of us are increasingly dependent on satellite
positioning systems. Innovations in satellite
navigation systems provide increased accuracy and
assurance.
Combining new systems with other terrestrial
positioning systems will provide resilience sufficient
©ESA
•Showcasing the power of space-derived services.
We need to help suppliers and innovators showcase
commercial applications and emerging technologies
to attract customers.
2.3 Empowering the Technology
For satellite technology to deliver its full potential it
needs to be placed in the hands of users in a way
they understand it and can use it – and quite possibly
don’t even know they are using it. We need to present
the technology in a way that creates opportunities,
instead of obstacles. Our activities need to empower
organisations to work together and use satellite
systems.
We aim to create development platforms and
intellectual property to facilitate the rapid and low cost
development, testing and deployment of applications
that utilise satellite assets, services or data.
As we look towards a future in which satellite
Sentinel 1 – orbiting the Earth
“With our world-class facilities and expertise, we will
unlock the market potential, enabling businesses to
develop commercial services”
8
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
for safety critical applications like autonomous
transport systems
•Connectivity services with satellite
communications:
Emerging communications and broadcast satellite
technologies, coupled with hybrid satellite/terrestrial
communication systems make possible radical
changes in the types of services which can be
delivered, and an era of seamless, ubiquitous mobile
connectivity.
•Mission concepts to deliver to new satellite
services:
New approaches for development of cubesats and
nanosats are disrupting the existing satellite markets.
It is anticipated that such satellites will in future
change the cost and timeliness of data, thereby
creating new opportunities to address societal and
business needs. The UK has strong heritage in the
development of small affordable satellites and the
infrastructure to deploy them.
•Application innovations by empowering users:
The advent of cloud-based processing has
driven innovation in the creation and delivery of
applications. This, combined with the ubiquitous
availability of location-aware smart-phones and
improved ways of accessing and presenting data,
are enabling the Connected Digital Economy.
To achieve our goals we need to create teams with core
competencies in each of these key technology areas.
These teams must work with the community to develop
programmes, create platforms and deliver projects
to enable the UK to capitalise on this innovation and
economic potential.
Our objective is to establish a rich ecosystem of satellite
application development within the UK; encouraging
investment in skills; providing companies with the
tools and expertise to develop and exploit satellite
applications so they can compete effectively in national
and global markets. Importantly, we are opening up
opportunities to non-experts in the way that the wider
internet has fuelled entrepreneurship.
sa.catapult.org.uk
2.4 Enabling Business
The space sector is full of great ideas, but only a few
become reality. Entrepreneurs and existing businesses
require advice, resources and funding to drive growth.
We connect entrepreneurs and businesses with the
resources they need to launch and succeed. By filling
gaps in provision in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and
focussing on stimulating virtuous feedback loops in
that environment, we aim to make the space sector a
long-term engine for economic growth.
Now is the perfect time to be starting businesses in this
sector and we need to attract more entrepreneurs and
innovators to drive growth.
We have a three pronged strategy for enabling business
based upon identified need:
•Stimulate New Businesses:
The access and opportunity in the space sector
today is unprecedented. The cost of building and
launching satellites and access to data has never
been lower. As a previously closed and conservative
sector, stimulating new businesses is key. We
must stimulate new people to start businesses to
capitalise on this opportunity. This involves engaging
with new users, developers, financiers and others.
•Grow Existing Businesses:
Supporting current businesses to grow is vital.
Businesses need to scale for the industry to
succeed. £2M revenue businesses need to
become £10M businesses with £10M growing to
£100M. This can be supported by targeting gaps
in the provision of facilities, services, expertise and
business support. Access to finance at both start-up
and growth stages, and support in developing and
getting products to market, are further areas where
there is a need.
•Create the Environment:
Enabling businesses to develop requires a supportive
industrial and regulatory environment. The UK must
deliver interventions that address regulatory barriers
and market failures, and make the UK the best place
to grow a space/satellite business.
9
Our Vision, Strategy and Measures for Success
We aim to stimulate a vibrant national space sector
by improving the supply of finance, business support,
information and skills. Leveraging existing capability
where it exists is essential, as is documenting,
organising and signposting resources.
The aim is to create a virtuous circle that drives growth
of the industry across the value chain. The successful
businesses of today become the investors and mentors
of tomorrow and the flow of need from end-customer
through the supply chain is complemented by the
ambition, cooperation, skills and finance needed for the
industry to grow.
Our approach to enabling businesses is focussed
around the experience of our customers. We want
businesses that engage with the Catapult to have
such a positive experience that they want to return for
more. Everything we do is executed with this in mind to
stimulate a positive feedback loop.
2.5 Establishing World-Class Facilities
Facilities and platforms can increase the UK’s
international competitiveness by providing ways to
accelerate the development of new satellite applications
and services. They are key to lowering barriers to
access and ease of use of satellite data. They underpin
our activities, supporting demand generation, problem
solving, and facilitate delivery into the market quickly
and efficiently.
Our facilities and platforms must drive:
• Innovation and collaboration:
The environment we create needs to act as a
catalyst for open innovation and collaboration
between customers and suppliers. From our rooms
and innovation spaces to our technical facilities, this
can generate new business opportunities for the UK,
as well as stimulating market-directed research and
development.
• Applications and solutions:
Creating an “end to end” service environment
10
will enable users to access a huge variety of
satellite data in new and innovative ways, allowing
organisations to prototype, develop, integrate,
test and demonstrate new products, services and
applications.
Where there are gaps in provision, we will
collaborate to fill the need. At a national level, we
will combine this service offering with other facilities
to act locally across the UK to help lower the entry
barrier to market for new enterprise.
Our facilities stimulate innovation, generate revenue
for the Catapult and in the future some can be spun
off into industry or a new business to stimulate further
economic growth. Importantly, they allow both the
industry and the Catapult to scale and deliver benefits
widely.
2.6 A
ttracting and Developing
Top Talent
The best talent is key for the space sector. Our most
important asset is our staff.
The opportunity presented by the growth of the sector
requires the best people from the space sector and
new people from other backgrounds to engage,
bringing new thinking and ideas. We aim to employ a
diverse group of people from a range of backgrounds
each bringing with them a distinctive skill set that
creates a unique foundation for the work we do. We
will look to provide end to end expertise to support
the development and commercialisation of satellite
applications.
We see it as critical to foster an open and collaborative
culture that stimulates and develops our staff and
encourages collaboration and innovation. We must
work hard to create an environment which is dynamic,
exciting, challenging, rewarding, flexible and, most
importantly, fun. This is key in bringing a difference to
the sector and helping stimulate innovation. We want
our staff to be excited about what the Catapult does
but, more importantly, by the work they do. We will
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
challenge them with important initiatives and make sure
they have the visibility to see how their work makes a
difference.
We then need to encourage the talent that we attract
to develop, to grow, and to go out into the commercial
world and practise what they have learned for the
benefit of the sector. Circulating throughout the sector
and customer markets is key and we will develop
knowledge and people exchange programmes with
both the business sector and the research community
to drive this. We can use secondees, work placement
interns and expert consultants to support our
employee workforce, allowing us to broaden and
enhance our capabilities and to have wider impact
on the sector.
Our overall aim is to act as a catalyst for innovation
in the sector and we will achieve this by ensuring the
positive experience and development of those that
engage with us. They will continue their careers as
alumni and supporters of the Catapult, armed with
skills to help them and others to innovate, to act as
champions and potential future customers for the
sector and the Catapult.
2.7 B
uilding a UK Focus, with Global
Reach
It is imperative that we support industry and the science
base across the UK, not just in Harwell, to contribute to
our national target of a 10% share of the £400bn global
space market predicted by 2030. 95% of all new jobs
and activities are likely to be located away from Harwell.
£40bn global
space market
• Support nationwide growth
Along with European Center for Satellite Applications
and Telecommunications (ECSAT) we aim to provide
a central hub of space activity at Harwell. But it
is essential that this is used to support growth of
space revenues and capabilities across the nation.
Additionally, a principle finding of the Space GAP is
the critical importance of exports, which need to grow
from £2bn to £25bn per annum, by 2030. To achieve
this, we must enhance the UK’s competitive edge and
enable targeted, market-led investments in leading
edge technology that has global appeal.
• Enable export growth
Through the Space IGS GAP, we are putting the
UK at the centre of a global transformation towards
space-enabled services. Working with colleagues in
UKSA and UKTI, we must extend our reach beyond
our national boundaries to give UK companies easy
access to global markets and international supply
chains. This will require targeting of new international
relationships, creating bilateral programmes with
an export focus, and bringing large international
businesses to establish operations in the UK.
These factors have a strong influence on the structure
and focus of the Catapult. We must aim to:
• Ensure returns from European investments
We also need to increase the UK’s returns from
sa.catapult.org.uk
11
Our Vision, Strategy and Measures for Success
Europe by securing greater influence in large
European-funded programmes – both ESA and
EU. We must play a leading role in coordinating UK
interests, especially with respect to Horizon 2020
activities in the satellite applications arena. This will
include interests, not only in the specific “space”
theme, but more importantly into other related
key enabling technologies and societal challenges
identified in H2020.
Through these aims, we will support the whole UK
to provide the engine to drive innovation and growth
in satellite applications and generate the channels to
market that will enable the impact to scale globally.
between the players. We are the organisation that can
make things happen. Working in collaboration with the
community we help create a rich ecosystem of satellite
application development within the UK.
We have a multi-disciplinary team with competencies
in all aspects of satellite services and a culture that
stimulates innovation. The availability of our specialist
and commercially oriented skills to support business
growth is unique globally. Our culture and values shape
the way we help our community to innovate. We bring
PACE to a previously closed and slow moving industry.
•
Pioneering – Enabling organisations to explore new
challenges and ideas through a world-class centre of
expertise
2.8 T
he Catapult Difference –
The Pursuit of Impact
•
Agile – Developing a flexible and dynamic team with
a passion to inspire and enable
We focus on our value adding elements and
differentiators to maximise our value to the community.
Our sector has many areas of excellence but is often
fragmented. Therefore, we act as a connector to bring
innovators together to collaborate. We are a unique
company with our position as a neutral convener.
There are many opportunities for innovation that have
not progressed because of commercial tensions
•
Collaborative – Uniting businesses and endusers with researchers in an environment of open
innovation
•
Entrepreneurial – Driving innovation and commercial
growth.
We make certain that we add value to our sector by
ensuring that everything we do has a clear opportunity,
Our operations center
“A rich ecosystem of satellite application development within the UK”
12
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
blocker and enabler. The blocker and enabler must
define why the Catapult is needed. By ensuring that our
activities have a clearly defined and published rationale
that addresses these, we can make sure that they are
valued by the community.
Our major activities are programmes that support
the growth of the sector and create focal points for
innovation to lower barriers and stimulate growth in
satellite applications. We then have:
•Technology teams and themes
Focussing on driving innovation through
developments in enabling satellite technologies
•Projects
Focussing on exploitation and allowing the agility
and flexibility needed to support innovation
•Demonstrators
Showcasing innovations to promote the power
of space-derived services and connecting UK
innovators with end-users
•Platforms
Integrating data, tools and methodologies to allow
innovators to prototype, develop, integrate, test
and demonstrate new products, services and
applications
•Facilities
Enabling infrastructure to support the community to
innovate.
innovation and bringing that innovation to market. Our
structure allows us to bring technical and platform
innovations closer to market by encouraging a market
pull-through toward market-focussed programmes.
Our market engagements focus around promoting
the capabilities and solutions of the space sector and
understanding wide user needs but with emphasis
on applications for the technical innovations and
capabilities that we are developing.
All of our activities are measured to ensure they have
the potential to deliver impact.
Our Explore Markets programme supports wide
engagement and promotion of the sector to understand
needs and opportunities. Our explore technology
programme allows development of major satellite
application technology innovations. Our market
focus programmes pull these toward real users, thus
speeding up commercialisation and allowing these
innovations to subsequently feed into other markets
when mature.
Importantly, our programme structure drives us to meet
our goals of engaging and stimulating demand, driving
For example, our technology activities in seamless
connectivity, which has potential for significant
All of the above sit alongside complementary business
support and knowledge exchange activities that
support our programmes.
“The main criteria for our activities are the potential
for economic impact and the need for the Catapult”
sa.catapult.org.uk
13
Our Vision, Strategy and Measures for Success
economic impact across markets, is pursued but with
an emphasis on initial customers building applications
for either maritime or transport which are our initial
focus programmes. This brings innovations closer to
market and initial applications that build on this crosscutting technology are focussed on these sectors (see
below).
The adoption of a limited number of such programmes
and technology initiatives gives us focus. It allows
us to marshal our resources and concentrate on
helping businesses, universities and the relevant user
communities active in the areas of interest. We leverage
collaborative funding and commercial contracts to
support our ambitions and our ability to leverage
these funds is a good indicator of our relevance to the
community.
Critically, it is the co-location of all these attributes that
make us unique in the innovation ecosystem.
2.9 Measures of Success
The Catapult programme has been established to
deliver economic impact. That means job creation, and
contribution to UK GDP that would not have happened
if the Catapults were not there. Consequently, this is the
ultimate measure of success.
•£100M of activities directly enabled by the Catapult
in the year
•£100M of external business activity, enabled by the
our previous interventions.
Whilst this economic impact very much remains our
focus, we can’t sit back and wait five years to see
whether our plan has been successful. We must find
intermediate measures which provide early indicators
of likely economic success, through which we can set
targets and assess shorter term progress. However,
we must continuously take care that these intermediate
measures always remain servants to us as early
indicators, and we don’t fall into the trap of allowing
them to enslave us as goals in their own rights.
Through assessing the engagement satisfaction of our
stakeholder community, the quality of our innovation
outputs, and the direct impacts we are having on
businesses, we can gain strong insights as to whether
we are on the right path. Section four shows the
progress we have made during our first year, how we
drive long-term significant impact, and sets out the
n
path for the future.
Here at the Satellite Applications Catapult, our aim
is that by 2018/19 – our fifth year of operation – the
accumulated results of our efforts will be contributing
£200M per annum to the UK GDP. This comprises:
Technology
Themes
End-Users
Explore
Focus
Focus
Explore
Explore
Technology
Maritime
Applications
Transport
Applications
Explore
Markets
Communications
Navigation
Earth Observation & Remote Sensing
Missions
Using our focus programmes to pull technical innovations to market
14
Business
Plan 2014-2019
Delivery Plan
3.0Executing the Strategy
3.1 Energising the Market
3.1.1 Promoting the Sector
Through our explore markets programme we aim
to promote awareness of the capabilities of space,
and to identify opportunities that contribute towards
generating growth in the UK. Our approach is to
engage with organisations in potential growth
markets, to demonstrate the diversity of applications
and to collaborate with the space sector to deliver
cost-effective solutions. We engage widely and
are assessing future application programmes for
Agri-tech, Future Cities, Energy, and Security and
Resilience.
We have started two major activities on behalf of the
space sector to promote awareness and engagement
in response to IGS recommendations. Our Satellites
for Everyone (S4E) project aims to stimulate new
users and demand for services by providing a
toolkit for business developers. This is bringing
together information about the current (and near
future) capabilities of the satellite service sector in
appropriate media for wide distribution to non-space
business and public sector users. Following extensive
understanding of users and their needs, first materials
were available in June 2014.
We are working with the UK Space Agency on the
implementation of the Space for Smarter Government
Programme (SSGP) aimed at growing the use of
space data, services and applications by Government
departments, agencies and Non Governmental
Organisations (NGOs). The staff for SSGP will be
fully embedded alongside our own staff in Harwell to
ensure alignment. First opportunities are expected in
late 2014.
We also plan to establish conferences and thought
leadership activities around the five IGS market
themes. Interested communities will be able
to engage and follow activities, shaping future
programmes and stimulating interest and demand for
services in these areas.
3.1.2 Driving Application
Commercialisation in Growth
Markets
We use our focus programmes to target thematic
sectors. Each focus programme is tailored to meet
the needs of a particular sector. Activities will range
from removing structural market barriers to creating
new demand by stimulating and developing new
products and services. They centre on creating
awareness and engaging stakeholder communities.
Each programme orchestrates activities with
innovators, suppliers, application developers, and
“We will raise awareness and
stimulate new demand for
applications and satellite services”
sa.catapult.org.uk
sa.catapult.org.uk
15
Executing the Strategy
which will include promotion through both online and
printed media, thought leadership and attendance at
appropriate market-focused conferences to represent
the satellite sector. Ideas and new user requirements to
take forward come from these engagements, as well as
our own staff, partners and networks.
solution providers. They are often focussed around
the creation of a demonstration platform that attracts
customers and, importantly, allows us to leverage our
technical expertise by pulling those key cross-cutting
technical innovations to that market. Once a technology
has been proved in one market, it can be applied to
others with real economic impact.
We have established a series of workshop style
engagements to enable this process:
In line with the IGS recommendations, we are already
developing focus programmes in the following market
areas:
• Explore Events
Large information gathering events
•Maritime
An extreme market, often with limited alternative to
satellites and hence an early adopter of new satellite
solutions. Our initial focus is around operational
situational awareness, realising new applications
through the exciting developments in satellite
constellations, new sensing techniques and near
real-time capabilities.
• Spark Workshops
Generating/shaping ideas on specific topics
• Solution Workshops
Examining ideas in detail to produce business cases.
•Transport
Major new developments such as autonomous
systems and applications that require seamless
connectivity make the transport market an ideal
testbed for applications that use the capabilities
we are developing in seamless communication,
Machine to Machine (M2M) and resilient Positioning,
Navigation and Timing (PNT).
“Promotion of the programmes
on websites, through digital media,
conference attendance, business
development and national press
will energise the market,
stimulate engagement and unlock
the economic impact which
we are seeking”
Each has had its rationale further refined and
published, consolidating the work undertaken to date.
For each programme we run marketing campaigns
Discover
Define
Deliver
Explore
External Ideas
Our workshop engagement process
16
Spark
Workshop
Catapult
Support
Investment
& Work
Resultant Insights
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
3.1.3 S
howcasing the Power of
Space-Derived Services
3.2.1 Information Services with Remote
Sensing Technology
Our first two demonstrator platforms have been initiated
and will mature in 2014.
Our Earth Observation (EO) and remote sensing team
aims to stimulate and support significant uptake in the
use of EO-derived products and services by simplifying
access to data and providing data processing and
information systems to enable rapid application
development. Improvement in overall access will
enable more wide-spread and faster development
of applications and delivery of services. Major trends
through low-cost constellations and streaming video will
create further new users.
•Operational Situational Awareness
Demonstrator
The ability to combine multiple satellite and other
data sources to provide enhanced situational
awareness is one that we are well placed to
demonstrate. Our demonstrator is being developed
with an initial focus on illegal fishing to align with
our maritime programme but future benefits will be
leveraged by many markets.
•Emergency Services Mobile Communications
Platform Demonstrator
Our Satellite Communications Team is developing
an Emergency Services Network Capability
Demonstrator platform that will be used to support
the demonstration and subsequent development
of novel techniques for integrating terrestrial and
satellite communications systems for operational
applications.
Each focus programme will aim to host an explore
workshop annually, to showcase activity and encourage
engagement. Our ultimate aim is stimulating the
success of others. We will licence intellectual property,
spin out businesses and even sell complete operations
as we exit activities and enable others.
The initiatives for our EO team are:
• E
O Data Exploitation Platform, supporting many
thematic exploitation platforms. Each amalgamates
data and tools to allow manipulation, analysis,
visualisation and collaboration. This builds upon
the success of the Climate and Environmental
Monitoring from Space (CEMS) infrastructure. Our
CEMS platform is successfully used today for cloud
computing and the focus in 2014 is to increase
the data available through the platform for use by
innovators.
• U
K collaborative ground segment to exploit new
EO data access opportunities afforded by the
developing UK collaborative ground segment
network and inter-agency agreements (e.g. UK and
Italian space agencies).
• S
ynthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Application
Development platform to stimulate the uptake and
3.2 Empowering the Technology
Through our explore technology programme and
technology teams we have identified key developments
that will underpin new application development.
During 2014 these activities will be pulled closer to
market through our focus programmes. A major part
of empowering the technology is the development of
platforms and facilities to facilitate exploitation.
Constellations versus traditional satellite deployment
sa.catapult.org.uk
17
Executing the Strategy
use of SAR data in preparation for the future UK
NovaSAR mission and the increasing availability
of SAR data through public and private European
constellations. Data from Cosmo-Skymed also
supports this.
The Space GAP also builds on the IGS 2010
recommendation to secure world leadership in
technologies and services related to climate-change.
We will build upon our CEMS platform to support UK
leadership in the delivery of climate services.
3.2.2 L
ocation-Based Services with
Enhanced Satellite Navigation
Our navigation team is ensuring that the UK secures
a lead in the novel exploitation of new GNSS services
such as PRS, and in the creation of highly resilient
position/navigation/timing systems for national
infrastructure and business-critical applications.
The key initiatives are:
•Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS) and
development platform
The PRS being introduced on the European Galileo
satellite navigation system allows increased trust
in the integrity of the navigation systems, providing
enhanced security for critical infrastructure. It
is essential that the UK secures early adopter
advantage in trialling PRS. To achieve this, a trialling
infrastructure will be developed that supports a
national PRS implementation and operation of
infrastructure and applications. Without this essential
national asset, the market will be closed to UK
entities. Working with such systems demands the
use of very secure facilities such as those deployed
within the Catapult.
•Resilient PNT and Verification and Validation
Platform
We are developing a range of counter-measures for
GNSS weaknesses in concert with UK stakeholder
and supplier communities. Initial activity has
focussed around understanding and measuring
18
interference, detection and jamming issues such that
counter-measures can be developed.
3.2.3 Connectivity Services with
Satellite Communications
The key to effective applications is the timely acquisition
of data and delivery of information to end-users.
Our Satellite and Mobile Communications team will
have core competencies in satellite systems design,
simulation, and implementation of communications
devices.
Our key initiatives in satellite communications are:
•M2M and low cost satellite communications
We are supporting the development of integrated
low-cost satellite communications devices. M2M
applications to smaller and cheaper mobile terminals
include low-cost vehicle and vessel telemetry and
fleet management systems, monitoring of remote
assets, and integration with terrestrial systems
providing services and applications such as smartmetering. Our work includes development of an
M2M Systems Integration Platform that will allow us
to work with organisations hoping to leverage the
explosion in data from connected digital sensor and
actuator networks.
•Seamless connectivity
We are influencing the direction of the terrestrial
M2M and 5G standards for accommodation of
satellite systems. We will play a pivotal role in raising
awareness of the opportunities, coordinating and
supporting development activities, progressing
standards, and informing policy-makers. This
includes development of a Satellite Communications
Lab and Communications application development
platform. Our Emergency Services Network
Capability Demonstrator platform will further be
used to support the demonstration and subsequent
development of novel techniques for integrating
terrestrial and satellite communications systems to
extend reach and resilience for efficient operational
applications.
Using our videowall to explore eath observation data
Catapult Intervention with PRS:
During 2013 we used test equipment in our
security and resilience centre to become the first
independent European organisation to verify the
accuracy and integrity of the new Galileo PRS
system.
“We coordinated a major
demonstration to take place in
2014 to illustrate the benefits of
an integrated terrestrial/satellite
communications system for the UK’s
future Emergency Services Network”
3.2.4 N
ew Mission Concepts to Deliver
to New Satellite Services
The mission of this team is to support UK innovation
and growth by fostering novel operational mission
concepts and supporting low-cost access to space.
The team has core competencies in ground-segment
design, mission planning and operations, and will work
with the UK communities to provide additional support
for future operational missions.
sa.catapult.org.uk
We are creating the platforms and processes that will
allow us to support the creation of technologies and
missions to grow the number of available satellites in
orbit, thereby increasing availability and timeliness of
data whilst driving down costs. There are a number of
blockers associated with the realisation of new mission
opportunities, including regulatory affairs; the current
business models for provision of downlink services for
EO satellites; and the time taken to task satellites using
conventional concept of operations.
Our key activities are:
•Mission operations centre for small and
micro-satellites
The provision of professional commercial
operational services to such satellite constellations
is generally not available at a reasonable cost. We
are developing this capability to enable the UK to
take the lead in this market. The Operations Centre
began operating TDS-1 in summer 2014.
•Mission platforms
We are working with innovators in the academic
and industrial base in the UK to create the
next generation of solutions and missions. We
have physical test-beds which will enable the
demonstration and validation of new technologies
and services. We will support the creation of flight
19
Executing the Strategy
opportunities and demonstrators either on airborne
platforms, piggyback payloads, shared launches or
dedicated missions. Our TDS-1 mission launched in
summer 2014. Further cubesat opportunities and a
missions lab with bench test facilities and airborne
options will further develop through the year.
•Mission communications centre and ground
segment technology development
Satellite-relay technology suitable for use with
small satellites is important for the growth of the
cubesat opportunities. We are involved with the
European Data Relay System and are developing a
capability to provide, and advise on, inter-satellite
communications capability to enable more real-time
tasking and acquisition.
3.2.5 A
pplication innovations by
empowering users
Our Applications and Solutions team provides the
platforms for exploitation of satellite services and
deployment of applications.
Our Illegal fishing demonstrator
20
The key initiative is:
•Developing the suite of Applications Development
Platform tools for the Catapult and any organisation
wishing to develop Satellite Applications. These
facilities and capabilities will allow non-space
businesses and individuals to develop new
applications for their customers, and to integrate
systems and showcase their capabilities to users.
The platform improves access to data for nonexperts and the large volumes of data require
expensive and specialist processing. This is initially
focussed on operational situational awareness for
illegal fishing in line with our focus programmes.
Case study:
Morton Manufacturing developed an integrated
SATCOM / mobile network / wifi communications
hub with Catapult support. Mentoring and
business support helped create a business plan
that led to the creation of a new business entity
which is now bidding on contracts with the
Scottish Ambulance Service.
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
Engage
Assess
• Hackathons
• Open Innovation Challenges
• Space for You events
• Market Engagement
• Associate Incubators
Support
Set Free
Champion
Business Mentor
Solutions
Accelerator
100
40
8
• Access to
Facilities
• Small Projects
• Networking
• Bid Support
• Sign-posting
• Ideas
Accelerator
• Business
Support
Programme
• Investor
Readiness
• Large Projects
• Workspace
• External
Mentors
• Business
Creation
Toolkit
• Intensive
Support
Robust Propositions
with Skills and
Finance to Succeed
Catapult Alumni
supporting the
ecosystem to grow
Catapult Support Intensifies with SME Suitability
3.3 Enabling Business
The success of the industry and the Catapult depends
upon the scaling of new business concepts.
3.3.1 Stimulating New Businesses
Some of the key initiatives that we are undertaking to
support creation of new businesses are:
We provide selective levels of support intensity based
upon both the potential opportunity that a business
could create and the need and appropriateness of the
Catapult’s support.
• 2 Hackathons in 2013/14
• 100+ participants
• 10+ new propositions
• One new business
•Hackathons and Competitions
•Space for You events and monthly drinks targeted at
people new to the sector
•Open Innovation Challenges
•Associate incubator programme.
3.3.2 G
rowing New and Existing
Businesses
Case study:
The Technology Strategy Board successfully ran
the first Harwell Space Launchpad programme
and Catapult supported this with investor
readiness training. This ended with an event that
bought financiers together around the Harwell
Cluster and one business has already
progressed to raise finance.
Our primary activities include providing mentoring
and investor readiness and running accelerator
programmes.
sa.catapult.org.uk
21
Executing the Strategy
Following an initial assessment, companies are engaged
through either our SME Champion (100s of businesses
engaged with the Catapult‘s environment and facilities)
and Business Mentor (max 40 per year supported with
mentoring or investor readiness) which progressively
grow in terms of the level of our business support.
Sign-posting to other providers in the ecosystem is key
at all stages and we leverage this provision and fill gaps
where they exist. Our approach allows us to support a
large number of businesses whilst effectively directing
our resources to the areas where they will have the
most impact.
•Development of Business Propositions
From sign-posting and access to a group-based,
ideas accelerator, our support increases through
addition of mentors, including external mentors and
CEO academy to intensive support from our experts
•Helping Get Products to Market
The key provision in supporting getting products
to market is through networking and supply
chain opportunities. We can help inform, inspire
and enable communities to use space data and
technologies to advance their business. We also
help SMEs better tailor their products/services to
their end-users and to look for alternative uses for
their technology to grow their opportunities.
•Strategy and Routes to Finance
Finance and funding are key requirements for SMEs
and growth businesses. We provide businesses
with strategies, connections and support to help
them meet their finance needs including: grant
funding advice and bid support; investor readiness;
connections to capital and investor engagement and
education.
• Building a Team
We provide mentors and have relationships with
executive search firms and advisors that can support
the creation of a winning team
•Workspace
We provide hot-desks in an innovation environment
for start-up businesses and those that want to have
a footprint in the Catapult.
22
3.3.3 Enabling the Environment
In making the UK the best place to start and grow a
space business, there are many evolving challenges
that will be addressed by the Catapult. Many of the
challenges are addressed through the development
of our facilities, while others need regulation or other
factors to be amended.
The key challenge in enabling the environment that
we are addressing over the next year is making the
regulatory environment around launching and operating
satellites at least comparable with other nations.
3.4 Establishing World-Class Facilities
Over our first year, we have made enormous progress
in developing and delivering facilities and platforms
to meet the needs of the community and drive
Following use of our videowall for
their Mars Rover for a week, Airbus
Defence & Space praised the use of
our facilities and responsiveness
of staff.
innovation in the UK. Together they will create a unique
environment to combine satellite and other data
sources to deliver innovation and user exploitation.
They will include a secure data environment populated
with representative EO data, visualisation facilities,
an operations centre, and labs to experiment with
the latest communications and positioning services.
Many of the facilities and platforms have already been
described and feed into our applications and solutions
infrastructure.
Application Development Platform
Communications
M2M systems
integration platform
Low cost sat comms
platform
UK collaborative
ground segment
Communications
Applications
Development Platform
Navigation
Galileo Public
Regulated Service
(PRS)
Resilient PNT &
Verification &
Validation
Platform/GNSS
Resiliency Test
Platform
Earth Observation
& Remote Sensing
EO Application
Development
Platforms
(CEMS & SARAD)
Missions
Mission platform /
Missions Operation
Centre
SAR Application
Development
Platform
Earth Observation
Data Exploitation
Platform
Our technology platforms underpin our applications development platform
sa.catapult.org.uk
23
Executing the Strategy
3.4.1 Innovation and collaboration
Our Catapult centre is designed to stimulate innovation
and collaboration and has had fantastic use by our
communities as a focus for collaboration. Key elements
include our Spark Centre, Demonstration Centre,
Videowall, 3D projection system and other Data
Visualisation Facilities. These support the activities of
the Catapult, from media presentations, showcasing
and outreach, to analysis of data and R&D.
3.4.2 Applications and solutions
Our ultimate aim is to stimulate new applications and
services. Many of the Catapult facilities and platforms
underpin this aim. The Applications Development
platform provides development environments
incorporating satellite-derived datasets and services
which will be provided to technology and application
developers for prototyping. These facilities are
fundamental to the execution of many programmes.
Underpinning platforms are helping bring the best and
most real-time satellite and other information. Other
important generic facilities that support application
development include:
•Security and Resilience Centre (SRC)
Our SRC is accredited to handle and store sensitive
material with equipment and procedures to provide
An illegal fishing interface presentation on our videowall
24
connectivity to secure networks. It is a key centre
for sensitive aspects of satellite elements of national
infrastructure and elements important for the UK’s
ambition to host Galileo PRS services and sovereign
missions.
•CEMS
Our cutting-edge cloud computing infrastructure
allows processing and synthesis of huge data
sets into digestible information flows. This facility
underpins most of our application development
platforms and supports external businesses with
their data processing needs.
Our facilities enable the community and generate
revenue for the Catapult, allowing us to scale and
re-invest to support future industry growth. Many of
our facilities have been developed with service levels
to meet commercial requirements, including the
Operations Centre and our Data Processing Centre.
Major contracts for ESA and TechDemoSat respectively
are demonstrating the demand for these capabilities.
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
3.5 A
ttracting and Developing
Top Talent
Importantly, 70% of our workforce comes from nonspace backgrounds, bringing fresh and new ideas to
an already established industry. We have developed a
very successful recruitment process which has enabled
us to construct a team of over 70 people (see chart
below) with a unique blend of backgrounds, academic
achievement and a wealth of knowledge from various
sectors.
We are establishing an enviable culture and have
implemented initiatives to support its development
including the creation and embedding of the Catapult
values – PACE (Pioneering, Agile, Collaborative &
Entrepreneurial).
Employee development is a central part of our people
management approach. We recognise that we have a
responsibility to support employee progression within
the Catapult and make sure people get the right training
appropriate for their role. We don’t take knowledge for
granted and will review our knowledge base regularly,
unlocking talent, recognising potential and supporting
individual growth in the process.
Employee development is a central part of our people management
approach
As well as recruiting top talent into the Catapult, we
have also developed a plan to develop the talent pool
for the space industry. This includes working with
universities and supporting students with postgraduate
courses in space-related fields.
We have begun activities to enhance our engagement
and circulation with the community. We aim to second
staff in and out on a routine basis and already have our
first two secondees. We have also supported seven
internships.
35
Number of Employees
30
25
Technology
20
Innovation
15
Finance/
Operations
10
Executive
5
0
Jan
sa.catapult.org.uk
Feb
Mar
Avr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Growth of our key teams
25
Executing the Strategy
3.6 B
uilding a UK Focus,
with Global Reach
From the outset we have established ourselves as a
national centre, engaging widely with UK community.
We are also now gearing up for more proactive
international activities.
3.6.1 Support Nationwide Growth
We are specifically targeted to support three IGS
actions for nationwide growth:
•
First, with the UK Space Agency, we will develop a
mutually supportive national environment for space,
with the Harwell Space Gateway acting as the focus
for inward investment, by promoting the capabilities
of regional clusters and championing the use of
regional Centres of Excellence.
26
•
Second, again with the UK Space Agency, we
will work with Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
LEPs and Councils, to develop regional growth
plans for space and secure non-space funding for
new projects, Centres of Excellence and business
incubation centres across the UK.
•
And finally, we will work with the UK Space Agency,
Research Councils and the Regions to develop a
nationwide plan to co-ordinate investment in ground
segment infrastructure and technology Centres of
Excellence. This action should secure facilities that
support exploitation and growth, and provide valuefor-money from Government investments. This will
ensure that the UK takes a global lead in exploitation
of space infrastructure.
We will respond to these actions with focus primarily
around regional Centres of Excellence and Knowledge
Exchange Fellows.
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
Our Regional Centres of Excellence initiative will
form the key strand in supporting local communities
across the UK. Each CoE is a visible focal point for
our activity, linking the science base with large industry
and SMEs around the UK, to enable the development
of applications and solutions, as well as to engage the
wider end-user market. We anticipate funding up to six
Centres of Excellence through a first call, with three of
these being operational before April 2014. It is expected
that there will be further calls in future years, building to
create a network of linked capability, ensuring we reach
into the knowledge base and the end-user markets,
wherever they may be in the UK.
Important initial objectives of the programme are
to identify key areas of current or potential satellite
applications research strength and capability, and
ensure these are linked to industry and user markets, to
enable collaborative projects to develop. It will also help
us to determine where there are gaps in research that
need to be strengthened to enable the sector to grow.
A key element of the programme will be to allow
businesses to interact more effectively with the science
base, by understanding where leading edge research
is taking place and then to exploit it for the benefit
of the UK economy. It will provide a mechanism for
researchers to gain a better understanding of the needs
of business and how these could be met, thus further
stimulating the quality and breadth of the research base.
Further engagement with the science base will be
through direct bilateral support to key universities
and institutions in our stakeholder community. We
will provide specific support to the knowledge base,
through co-funding, with the host institution, highcalibre individuals focused completely upon the initiation
of new relationships leading to business innovation
opportunities in satellite applications.
We will also develop a network of Knowledge Exchange
(KE) Fellows to act as ambassadors and facilitators
within our programme areas. It is envisaged that we will
support an average of two KE Fellows per programme,
who will divide their time between a host university
and the Catapult. KE Fellows will provide strong links
between the Catapult and leading universities, and will
result in:
sa.catapult.org.uk
•
Exciting new interdisciplinary research
•
The translation of research for use by businesses
and policymakers
•
The uptake of this by businesses, generating growth
for the UK economy.
KE Fellows will work within their respective programme
area in the Catapult and will be grounded in relevant
world-class research groups within their host
institutions. They will focus on challenge areas that we
and host universities wish to develop with a view to
future commercial and collaborative projects.
3.6.2 Enable Export Growth
Strong export growth in space-enabled applications
and services is fundamental to the new UK strategy
and our own mission. We play an important role in
supporting the UK ambition to grow its exports. In
2013/14 our focus was primarily domestic as we
27
Executing the Strategy
Building significant international engagements around the globe
established ourselves. Through 2014 we will increase
our international engagement for the benefit of the
community. We will work with UKTI to find overseas
partners willing to provide export potential for the
UK supply chain, as well as inward investment into
programmes and resulting commercial products.
technologies and services related to climate-change.
A corresponding action is to support the UK community
with provision of expertise and facilities in this area and
for premium EO services.
We have had some significant international
engagements already with opportunities from our visits
to Chile, Columbia, US (Boston, Houston, Florida) and
Europe. We already have an ambassador in the US.
We have also supported numerous inward investment
opportunities which are seeing the Harwell site
becoming a real space cluster that can lead the UK to
excel through the competition and collaboration that
this will bring.
3.6.3 Ensure Returns from
European Investments
This ambition is underpinned by the Space Technology
Roadmaps which will enable the sector to prioritise
those enabling technologies that will deliver the most
benefit in the target high growth markets and therefore
enhance the UK’s competitive edge and export
opportunities.
Looking outside the UK, the Space GAP also
recommends to secure world leadership in
28
We have been working toward initial Horizon 2020
bids and will be increasing our engagement with the
community in this area. We are also growing even
closer links with the ESA ECSAT site, adjacent to our
building in Harwell. This will consolidate our opportunity
to benefit from the European dimension. In particular,
close coordination of our activities with the ESA
Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programmes
and its Climate Change Initiative is a significant
opportunity.
n
“Through 2014 we will increase our
international engagement for the
benefit of the community”
Business Plan 2014-2019
4.0 Increasing Our Impact
Through our first year we have successfully
established ourselves and are already delivering
noticeable impact. In 2014 we are positioned well, but
need to extend our reach, scale our engagement and
increase the impact we deliver. As outlined in Section
2.9, our principle objective is always economic
impact, but we need to use intermediate measures
as early indicators of likely economic success.
Hence, we use KPIs to ensure that we are clear
about what we are looking to achieve in the short and
medium-term, and how we expect that to lead to our
successful economic outcomes longer term.
We use our six-point strategy as the framework for
setting and measuring progress, through which we
can assess the engagement of our stakeholder
Objective
Date / Goal
Organisation
and Governance
• Catapult established and launched
• Main board appointments completed
• Executive Management Team in Place
• Interim to Operational transition completed
• “Catapult Culture” Established and Embedded
• April 2013
• May 2013
• June 2013
• July 2013
• March 2014
Collaborative Activities • Formalise connections with main collaboration
partners: ESA, EU, RAL, UKSpace, UK Space
Agency, STFC and other RC’s, Harwell Cluster,
Universities, LSFN
• Initial collaborative programmes identified and
launched
• July 2013
• 5 market-focused
collaborative projects
launched, totalling £3M
Market Engagement
• Establish and deliver market engagement
programme as outlined in the work plan
• 8 market-focused events,
• 24 spark innovation worshops
• 20 Catalytic Projects
executed, total value £1M
Facilities and Strategic
Programmes
• Strategic roadmaps defined and approved
• Strategic programmes for the new facilities
initiated
• Plans established for existing and new test
facilities: EO, Comms, and Nav
• July 2013
• 2 programmes, totalling £3M
• December 2013
Business Innovation
• Role of SME Champion defined and filled
• SME Support Programme launched
• July 2013
• September 2013
Knowledge Exchange
• Establish Strategic Relationships
• Establish People Exchange Schemes
• March 2014
• September 2013
The targets for our first year
sa.catapult.org.uk
29
Increasing Our Impact
community, the quality of our innovation outputs,
and the direct impacts we are having on businesses.
This gives us strong insights as to whether we are on
the right path.
aspiration is to have contributed to around £4-5bn of
industry growth as illustrated below.
We primarily impact industry turnover in two ways :
1. Directly linked activity as the result of Catapult
projects and research
4.1 First Year
2. Growth of new businesses and services
Our initial objectives have seen us establish an
organisation with a clear mission and the people, culture
and infrastructure to succeed. Our milestones were set
and all achieved as laid out in the intial Catapult delivery
plan.
The directly linked activity of the Catapult is anticipated
to trend toward £200M pa but will intimately depend
upon what new facilities and programmes are initiated
over time and their demand. The focus of the Catapult
is to stimulate new businesses and services, and as
these continue to grow, this becomes the major impact
of the Catapult.
4.2 Delivering Long-term Impact
By the end of our first five years, we aim to be delivering
tens of millions of pounds of impact, which will grow to
100s of millions of impact over the next five years and
in the subsequent five years this will grow to billions.
Our objectives are long-term and through our five
year business plan, we aim to show how our actions
are going to impact economic growth. By 2030 our
Catapult Impact
£Mx10s
Catapult Impact
£Mx100s
Catapult Impact
£Mx1000s
45,000
40,000
UK Turnover (£M)
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
2020
19,000
220
2025
29,500
1,600
2030
40,000
4,600
0
2
13
140
110
0
2
6
50
270
200
1
4
18
150
400
200
Year
IGS Target Turnover (£M)
Catapult Impact - Turnover New Businesses
and Services (£M)
# £Bn + businesses
# £100M - £1Bn businesses
# £10M - £100M businesses
# £2M - £10M businesses
# small businesses and/or services
Catapult Impact - Directly Linked Activity (£M)
10,000
atapult impact on industry growth
C
in five year increments
5,000
-
Year
2014 15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
UK turnover global share up to 10% (£M)
Catapult Impact
UK turnover without IGS (£M)
“Our initial objectives have seen us establish a company with a clear
mission and the people, culture and infrastructure to succeed”
30
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
Most of this growth is through the development of new
businesses and services and stimulation of inward
investment. The businesses that we stimulate now will
continue to grow and that compounding effect as the
successful businesses thrive will see some grow very
large, with our impact growing with them.
We can achieve this impact through:
•
Targeting high potential markets and interventions
•
Creating a scalable system that supports growth.
4.2.1 Targeting high potential markets
and interventions
Achieving our objectives requires market opportunities
worth billions and some of the businesses stimulated
within those markets to also be worth billions. The
IGS has identified 12 market opportunities, “each of
which will be worth at least £1 billion annually to UKbased suppliers within 20 years”. Through aligning
our interventions to where we have the most impact
(Section 1.2), we will be supporting the UK community
to capitalise on these opportunities.
Trend
Comment
Example Growth Business to Stimulate
• Lowering cost of launch
• Lowering cost and
miniaturisation of technology
• New entrants to the sector
• Technologies improving
access and ease of use of
data
• Lowering cost of access to space and cost
of satellites is already seeing new entrants
stimulated. These factors significantly change the
dynamics of the sector and bring new exciting
businesses within the realm of private finance.
• This is combined with innovations such as cloud
computing improving access to data.
• Seamless integration of
terrestrial and satellite
communications
• Significant structural change in satellite
communications as links with terrestrial providers
increase. Number of options but national
interests in most markets may push away from
vertically integrating satellite and terrestrial
comms providers. UK hence needs to have
several sat comms providers to capitalise on
the increased traffic over satellite as integration
increases.
• Sat comms operators
that link with terrestrial
providers
• Inward investment
• Move toward near real-time
and continuous observation
• Earth observation capabilities are improving
quickly, enabled by low cost constellations
with rapid revisit, near real-time innovations
and improved imaging and detection. As
developments move toward a scenario of
persistent observation, there will be opportunities
for major new businesses.
• Persistent imaging
• Low cost constellations
• Climate services
• Increased accuracy and
reliability of positioning
• As accuracy and reliability increases, new services • High reliability systems
become possible. Satellite positioning will be able
such as driverless cars
to play a part in developments such as driverless
• Security solutions
cars.
sa.catapult.org.uk
31
Increasing Our Impact
There are also major trends that underpin growth
expectations and align to the activities we are
undertaking.
smaller businesses. The aspiration of the Catapult is to
stimulate growth of new £1bn businesses, alongside
many smaller businesses.
The quantum of growth anticipated is such that the
industry will change significantly and the UK cannot just
do the same as done traditionally. The space industry
is also a sector heavily impacted by Moore’s law and
hence constant innovation is required.
To achieve this our system generates many ideas and
channels those through to creation of new high-growth
businesses. The figure below shows the approximate
numbers for selected KPIs when we are mature. For
every 200 ideas generated, we aim to stimulate 25 new
businesses or services.
Each of the major segments of communications,
navigation and earth observation have very different
industry dynamics and characteristics, but each has
been in a relatively mature part of an industry cycle.
Some of the trends in the table on page 31 will stimulate
a new wave of innovation in each of the sectors and
change the dynamics and structure of those sectors.
Early on, we need to stimulate the establishment of new
businesses in these areas, and others, that have the
potential to growth to £1bn operations.
4.2.2 C
reating a scaleable system
that supports growth
The most recent size and health study of the UK
space sector showed that in 2012 the sector had
a turnover of £9.1bn from 234 companies. There
are a limited number of major organisations such as
BSkyB, Inmarsat and Astrium, in addition to many
We are then contributing to creating a UK ecosystem
that can support these companies to scale and through
the compound growth of those businesses we achieve
our objectives. Some of our support to scaling includes
our expertise in late stage finance and support to
developing exports. Our success clearly depends upon
the scaling of new business concepts2, hence a focus
on bringing investment and financial support into the
ecosystem around the Catapult.
That system itself then needs to scale. We are already
extending our reach through Centres of Excellence and
associate incubators. The system can then scale as the
businesses that we enable now become the mentors
of the future, stimulating a positive feedback loop and
anchoring expertise and finance into the sector. We will
work with partners to enable a system that industrialises
the development of start-ups in the space sector.
Additional income that we earn will further fuel this
engine.
2
Growth of a £1bn business will dwarf the long-tail of smaller business.
45
Projects
Executed
200
400
Ideas
Generated
New Organisations
Engaged
25
75
New Businesses
& Services
Collaborations
Stimulated
IP Created
Exit, Support as Mentors,
Start Next Business
Channeling ideas through to growth of new businesses
32
Growth
50
Workshops
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
4.3 Increasing our Impact
The following sections give a high level view of our
focus over the next five years.
4.3.1 Energising the Market
We need to demonstrate how we are stimulating market
activity in the UK space sector. In our first year we have
had a wide engagement with user markets that has
stimulated demand for satellite and opportunities for
innovation. Next year we will continue to grow these
activities, which will be complemented by events in our
regional centres as they establish themselves.
We will concentrate on deeper engagement within our
focus programmes in Maritime and Transport. Targets
include the execution of our first focus programmes,
including demonstrator days for our Operational
Situational Awareness and Emergency Services Mobile
Communications Platforms, the launch of the Satellites
for Everyone initiative, and first calls for the Space for
Smarter Government programme.
We will also emphasise communicating our plans in
advance to improve transparency and engagement,
particularly with the supply community. Over the next
five years, we will grow to run four consecutive focus
programmes, as markets we assess in our explore
markets programme mature into full focus programmes.
Every focus programme will result in an ongoing
community of interest, even as our investment in that
sector reduces. Each of our major activities will be
assessed annually to understand how they should
evolve or be cut.
4.3.2 Empowering Technology
To drive more rapid adoption of emerging technology
we will endeavour to pull it closer to market through our
focus programmes. The platforms that support this will
continue to evolve with key milestones over the period
of our five-year plan. Each of these platforms is geared
toward generation of new businesses and services. In
addition to stimulation of new businesses and services,
creation of IP is important in our activities. Our objective
= milestone
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Focus
ENAV Enabled in 20% of Shipping
Maritime
Penetration of Satellite Devices
Transport
TBD1
TBD2
Assess New Markets
Explore
Markets
Agri, Security
Satellites for
Everyone
Space for
Smarter Govt
Understand, Build, 1st Engagements
Scale
Add New Interventions
Evolution of our market programmes
The IGS has identified 12 market opportunities, “each of which will be worth at
least £1 billion annually to UK-based suppliers within 20 years”
sa.catapult.org.uk
33
Increasing Our Impact
in the creation of IP is to ensure it is exploited for the
benefit of the UK economy. Very often this is through
our collaboration partners, but for all activities we fund,
we seek to ensure that other options remain possible if
this doesn’t happen.
and helping stimulate positive feedback of funding and
expertise, we are establishing a positive engine for the
growth of the sector.
We aim to provide a comprehensive package of
measures to support the growth of SMEs in the space
sector, with a single point of access, comprising
improved access to finance, business management
tools, skills training and mentoring.
4.3.3 Enabling Business
This year has seen the Catapult establish its business
support team and its offerings, and 2014/15 is about
scaling of the offering into the community. In order
to achieve scalability, we both leverage the wider UK
business support ecosystem and also encourage a
positive feedback loop with the successful businesses
we support to become future mentors.
4.3.4 Underpinning with World-Class
Facilities
All of the facilities and platforms described have begun
development. Our main successes are our building, the
use of our data processing platform (CEMS), contracts
for our operations centre, and establishment of the
PRS facility. We will continue to invest to enhance
By bringing in new people with new ideas, targeting
our efforts toward those businesses that can grow,
= assess
Comms
= milestones
2014
2015
Develop New Platforms
2016
2017
2018
Test with Market and Scale
M2M
Low Cost Coms
Rich-Media Demonstrator (ESMCP)
Comms App Devt
Test PoCP
Operate and Develop New Services
Nav
PRS
Local Interference Demo
National Roll-Out
Resilient PNT Receivers Deployed
Resilient PNT
Climate Services Demonstrator
EO
New Thematic
Platforms 1 to ...n
EO Applications
Platform
Acquire and Host Data
Operational Situational Awareness
Develop Platforms and Services
NovaSAR
Develop Lab
Add Airborne Capabilities
Missions
SARAD
Missions Lab
Operate TDS-1
Build CubeSat Operations Capability
Operations Center
Operate NovaSAR
Initial Pull to Transport and Maritime, Followed by New Markets as Focus Programmes Mature
34
2019
Delivery Plan 2014-2019
these based upon demand and feedback to allow the
community and the Catapult to grow.
Through 2014, at a national level, we will combine
these offerings with sign-posting to other facilities to act
locally across the UK to help lower the entry barrier to
market for new enterprise. This will link with our regional
Centres of Excellence activities.
The usage of our facilities has been very positive but as
capability grows and further facilities become available,
we will focus on increasing access and usability and
building communities around our facilities to improve
usage and overall impact.
4.3.6 UK Focus with a Global Reach
Having firmly established ourselves, reaching out both
nationally and internationally is a key priority for future
years as we look to enable UK growth.
Embedding three initial regional Centres of Excellence is
a key target in extending our engagement nationally.
This number will grow over the next five years to ensure
national engagement and impact.
In order to promote our activity internationally, we will
engage more deeply with our ambassador in the US
and we plan to further our global reach by engaging
other Catapult ambassadors in Europe.
n
Whilst creation of new services is enabled by our
facilities and platforms, spin-off of businesses that use
these capabilities, or even the facilities themselves, is
a future objective. Our illegal fishing demonstrator is
an early candidate for spin-off and creation of a new
commercial entity.
4.3.5 Attracting & Developing Top Talent
We are very proud of the team we have built, and
the culture we have created in our first year. We have
set out on a path that we believe will create major
economic benefit for the UK and we are now testing
this with the market to determine how we need to
change, adapt, improve.
We anticipate further recruitment in important delivery
capability areas with staff numbers levelling off at
around 85. Further staff growth will depend on traction
and responding to market feedback.
Culture remains a priority for us as this will help us
to succeed as the innovation engine for the sector.
We will also be focussing on increasing the flow and
development of talent with our stakeholder community
through secondments, internships, fellowships and
other mechanisms with both industry and academia
to spread the benefits widely. We will further establish
an alumni programme, so that all ex-staff, interns and
secondees now working elsewhere in the community
can remain engaged and help support our efforts.
sa.catapult.org.uk
35
Electron Building
Fermi Avenue
Harwell Oxford
Didcot
Oxfordshire, OX11 0QR
For more information:
T: +44 (0)1235 567 999
W:sa.catapult.org.uk
E:[email protected]
@SatAppsCatapult
Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd is an independent technology and innovation company. It is one of a network of elite centres established by the Technology Strategy
Board to accelerate the take up of emerging technologies and drive economic growth. The Satellite Applications Catapult is a company limited by guarantee, registered in
England and Wales. Company Registration Number 07964746. Registered office: Electron Building, Fermi Avenue, Harwell Oxford, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0QR, UK.