Speech
Kings College London
1 February 2022

It’s a huge pleasure to be here today on the next step in our execution of the Integrated Review, the Defence Command Paper and Defence and Security Industrial Strategy.

A lot has happened in Defence in the last year. From assisting in homeland resilience in issues as varied at vaccine delivery to Heavy Goods Vehicle support to the largest Royal Navy deployment in decades making our positive presence felt on the far side of the world.

Above all, as I speak, the Defence Secretary is meeting NATO partners, discussing the truly concerning situation on Ukraine’s borders – the most serious threat of a major war on our continent since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However the British people know that what they can always expect from UK Defence is calm, determined, delivery.

• Microcarb is a science satellite that will trace CO2 sinks and sources on a global scale.
• The requested performance for this launch planned in 2023 is 190kg on a sun-synchronous orbit at 650km.

EVRY-COURCOURONNES, France, January 18, 2022 (Arianespace PR) — Arianespace has been awarded a launch contract by ESA, on behalf of the European Commission, to launch Microcarb in 2023 on Vega C. Microcarb is a 190kg satellite developed by CNES that will be delivered into a sun-synchronous orbit, 650km above the Earth.

PARIS (ESA PR) — ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops has revealed that an exoplanet orbiting its host star within a day has a deformed shape more like that of a rugby ball than a sphere. This is the first time that the deformation of an exoplanet has been detected, offering new insights into the internal structure of these star-hugging planets.

The planet, known as WASP-103b is located in the constellation of Hercules. It has been deformed by the strong tidal forces between the planet and its host star WASP-103, which is about 200 degrees hotter and 1.7 times larger than the Sun.

• PLATiNO 1 and 2 are Earth observation satellites that will be launched on a Sun-synchronous orbit.
• Both small satellites are due to be launched between 2022 and 2024.
• PLATiNO is an all-electric multi-purpose small satellite platform developed in Italy, suitable for a wide range of applications (e.g. Optical, SAR, Telecom, etc.)

Évry-Courcouronnes, France, January 6, 2022 (Arianespace PR) — Arianespace has been awarded a launch contract by SITAEL, with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) as the final customer, to orbit PLATiNO 1 & 2 satellites, between 2022 and 2024 on Vega and Vega C. PLATiNO 1 and 2 are Earth observation small satellites operating on Sun-synchronous orbits. PLATiNO 1 will embark a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), operating in the X band, while PLATiNO 2 will carry an optical thermal instrument.

• Thanks to ST37, 60% of OneWeb’s constellation is now in orbit, bringing the constellation to 394 satellites launched.
• Thanks to ST37, Arianespace have conducted 15 launches in 2021, including eight missions for the benefit of OneWeb and a total of nine Soyuz flights, from three different spaceports.
• This launch also marks a new milestone in Arianespace history: since its creation in 1980, the company has officially deployed 1,101 satellites.

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan, December 27, 2021 (Arianespace PR) — On Monday, December 27, at precisely 06:10 p.m. local time at Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome (01:10 p.m. UTC), Soyuz flight ST37 lifted-off with 36 OneWeb satellites bringing, after this successful deployment, the size of the fleet in orbit to 394. Flight ST37 was the 63rd Soyuz mission carried out by Arianespace, the 37th with its Starsem affiliate, and the 12th mission for OneWeb.

TOKYO, 23 December 2021 (MHI PR) – Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd (MHI), one of the world’s leading launch services providers, announce the successful launch of Inmarsat’s first satellite in the Inmarsat-6 series (I-6 F1) by MHI’s H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 45 (H-IIA F45).

The LEOPARD (Low Earth Orbit Pursuit for Active Debris Removal) study will define concepts for de-orbiting 2 uncooperative UK space assets from low earth orbit

GUILDFORD, UK (Surrey Satellite PR) — Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has been selected to lead a UK Space Agency study to define the mission requirements for a complex mission to de-orbit two non-operational space debris targets. SSTL is a world-leader in the manufacture and in-orbit operation of small satellites, and has valuable experience in two previous Active Debris Removal (ADR) demonstration missions; RemoveDEBRIS, which concluded a series of debris retrieval demonstrations in January 2019, and Astroscale’s 2021 ELSA-d mission for which SSTL supplied the Client “target” satellite.

KOUROU, French Guiana (Roscosmos PR) — In accordance with the flight program, two new European Galileo FOC M9 satellites have successfully separated from the Fregat upper stage. Navigation spacecraft are in target orbit and are taken over by the customer. The launch vehicles of the State Corporation Roscosmos – the Soyuz-ST-B launch vehicle and the Fregat upper stage – worked without comment.

• On November 16, Arianespace successfully carried out its 20th Vega launch (VV20), its 12th launch of the year and the third with the Vega light launcher. It was also the 300th launch by Arianespace from the Guiana Space Center.
• The mission orbited three CERES satellites, developed for the French armed forces with French defense procurement agency DGA as contracting authority and with the assistance of the French space agency CNES.
• This latest mission by Vega once again shows Arianespace’s ability to support the most innovative satellite-based solutions from institutional customers.

KOUROU, French Guiana (Arianespace PR) — On Tuesday, November 16 at 6:27 am local time in Kourou, French Guiana, Arianespace successfully launched three CERES military intelligence satellites from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana (South America).

GLASGOW (UK Space Agency PR) — A new look for a UK-led mission that will set a new benchmark to detect change in Earth’s climate system has been unveiled as part of Earth Information Day (3rd November 2021) at COP26 – the United Nations Climate Change conference being hosted by the UK in Glasgow.

TRUTHS, which stands for Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio-Studies, will provide a gold standard reference for satellites observing the Earth, Moon and Sun.