Space Research Areas

Space Research Assets in Wales by Research Area

Activity across the Welsh universities covers virtually the full range of space research areas, as seen in the figure below.

Wales has particular strengths in Materials, Computational modelling, Earth observation, Launch and Control and Energy Systems. Collaborative projects in these areas would be able to draw expertise from a wide range of research groups, centres, and institutes across each of the universities. They would also be an effective way to showcase the space research strengths present in Wales.

Three research project themes have been identified which have the potential to align with wider policy, funding, and industry opportunities in Wales, falling under upstream and downstream subsectors, with consideration for engagement of the whole sector.

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Upstream: 3D printing of satellite components

There is potential for the use of 3D printing to produce complex structural components for satellites from high performance materials such as composites or Invar (which has low thermal expansion). These components support optical systems, energy systems or communication arrays.

A project with this theme would engage primarily with the materials research strength, but could also involve computational modelling and aerodynamics, as printed components require precise models prior to production.

Assets with relevant strengths in the universities include: MACH1 at Swansea, which has significant strengths in steel manufacturing and printing; the Advanced Composites Training and Development Centre at Wrexham Glyndŵr, with expertise in composite material production; or the Open University’s Materials Engineering Group, which has experience in advanced metal alloys.

Downstream: Handling large data volumes from observation

Devices in the space sector such as telescopes and satellites often produce extremely large volumes of data. Extraction of the required data requires significant expertise and can potentially use tools such as machine learning to achieve this.
This would be particularly relevant for downstream space research areas such as earth observation and environment – which are significant areas of strength for Aberystwyth and Bangor.

The processing of this data could be relevant to Cardiff’s Computational Mechanics and Engineering AI Research Group or the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Paradigms group at the University of South Wales (USW). Cardiff Metropolitan has the potential to contribute with its expertise in image compression housed in the Centre for Intelligent Sensors and Systems.

Sector-wide: A Welsh space mission

A CubeSat mission would draw on the diverse strengths of each university across Wales. This would involve:

All upstream capabilities in manufacturing and engineering, analytics, energy systems, and launch and control research, plus any instrumentation payload capabilities in optics and photonics and astronomy and astrophysics.
Midstream capabilities sustainability and logistics research.
Downstream capabilities in earth observation, education, and data analysis (with a potential Wales focus).

The driver behind the mission could be education: working with schools to disseminate research and encourage the future of space research in Wales.