British taxpayers are now part owners of a satellite constellation company called OneWeb after the Government won the bankrupt tech giant at an auction for $500million (£377million). This will not only be an attempt to rival the EU’s global satellite navigation system, Galileo post-Brexit, but also SpaceX, the joint venture between NASA and Elon Musk. Conservative Chair of the Parliamentary Space Committee David Morris told BBC Newsnight that the Government’s multi-million-dollar stake into the firm OneWeb was a “very good investment” for the future of UK tech.
He said: “We’re looking towards the future, this is about creating jobs and creating global enterprises.
“This is about creating security with our Five Eyes alliance.
“We have got the capabilities now of being a big player in this space race.
“I believe in December we’re sending up our rival to SpaceX.”
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Mr Morris continued: “If you look at the technology pound for pound, SpaceX are trying to copy what we’ve actually devised with OneWeb.
“I think it’s the right decision to go with this and to keep with it.
“If we can produce two satellites a day, which is phenomenal and no other facility can do that in the world, we’ll be world leaders.
“The development costs for this system have been astronomical in the past, we’ve actually got a snip at $500million.”
OneWeb promises global broadband services, something Boris Johnson is especially keen to deliver now that the UK’s relationship with Chinese tech giant Huawei has soured.
The company had gone bankrupt in March while trying to build a spacecraft network to deliver broadband.
The Government then entered a consortium to bid on OneWeb ownership.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma said it would help deliver the “first UK sovereign space capability”.
The desire to get involved was spurred by the UK being cut out from the EU’s satellite navigation, Galileo.