The Aerospace Corporation UK Ltd has supported the UK’s strategic prioritisation of space by drawing on The Aerospace Corporation’s decades of experience working with the US national security space enterprise.
The latest cooperative space agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States is opening new opportunities for collaboration across this allied space enterprise.
Signed in April 2026, a bilateral statement of intent reinforced an ‘unwavering commitment to space collaboration’ between the US Space Force (USSF) and the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to keep space ‘stable and secure’.
The Aerospace Corporation’s wholly owned UK subsidiary, The Aerospace Corporation UK Ltd, helped shape the technical foundation for that agreement and continues to support the UK’s evolving space capabilities by bridging technical expertise across the two nations.
From Insights to Investment
The effort began through discussions with stakeholders across US Space Force organisations about lessons learned in military space operations, systems engineering and organisational development that could inform the UK’s strategic vision for space.
The MOD engaged Aerospace UK to draw upon Aerospace’s decades of experience supporting the US national security space enterprise. MOD, Aerospace UK’s customer since 2021, raised critical questions: Where could the UK invest to change its approach to space? What would be most useful to allies? And where could the UK play the most meaningful role?
‘One of our greatest strengths is our ability to connect partners with the right expertise at the right time’, said Aerospace UK managing director David Sandy. ‘Aerospace UK may be the front door, but behind that door is the full technical capability of The Aerospace Corporation’.
Rather than replicate another nation’s approach, Aerospace experts suggested the UK explore organisational models, technical practices and insights that best aligned with the UK’s own priorities while strengthening interoperability with its allies. This launched broader discussions which informed first the UK government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in 2025, and the subsequent Defence Investment Plan, which established an investment strategy for long-term funding of priority capabilities enumerated in the SDR.
The Defence Investment Plan, published 30 June 2026, details significant investments for the UK to ‘enhance space control, including developing capabilities to increase our awareness of space activities and protect critical national assets in orbit’. The release of the UK Space Strategy in September 2026 solidified that the UK would ‘establish Control of Space as a strategic requirement’. Aerospace UK continues to support this effort by contributing technical insight to roadmap development, future concepts and systems architecture as MOD refines its approach – work that is as much about building enduring UK sovereign capability, and the industrial pipeline and skilled people who sustain it, as it is about the systems themselves.
Strategic Value for Both Nations
The priorities outlined in the April statement of intent – signed by then USSF Chief of Space Operations Gen Chance Saltzman and Royal Air Force Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth – reflect the intent of existing multinational efforts such as Operation Olympic Defender. Stronger UK capabilities enhance allied space operations and enable coalition partners to respond more effectively as threats continue to evolve.
‘The more eyes you have on the environment, the better you’re able to monitor what is happening and changing around you’, said Lara Schmidt, member of the Aerospace UK board of directors and vice-president of Defense Architectures and Integration for Aerospace in the US. ‘Collaborating with the UK on space domain awareness and control is extremely important to US national security’.
‘I was proud to join General Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations in signing a joint statement emphasising the vital importance of space in our rapidly evolving world,’ UK Air Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth wrote in April. ‘Space capabilities are critical to security, innovation, and global collaboration, shaping the future for all nations. Together, we reaffirm our commitment to advancing peaceful and resilient space operations’.
Aerospace’s value to its US and international customers comes from combining objective technical analysis with operational insight across the space enterprise – connecting customers with specialists who understand not only how systems are designed, but how they’ve evolved operationally and the engineering trade-offs behind them.
‘That breadth and depth of expertise allow us to support informed decisions tailored to the unique objectives of both the US enterprise and our UK allied partner’, said Schmidt.
Aerospace UK’s customers – including MOD and the UK Space Agency – access the collective technical expertise of Aerospace’s Engineering and Technology Group and the latest in prototype capabilities emerging from Aerospace’s laboratories. The UK government and space industry, with Aerospace UK’s support, explored how one such prototype – the groundbreaking Moonlighter space-cyber testbed satellite – might advance Control of Space, new sovereign supply chains and cyber-resilient in-orbit operations. This led to the UK Space Strategy’s call for the development of an in-orbit cyber demonstration similar to Moonlighter, which featured in the Hack-a-Sat competition at DEF CON 31 in 2023.
‘We are looking at how to bring key sponsors across His Majesty’s Government together under a single contractual framework – one that could be accessed to support bilateral space integration with allies and partners, and without commercial conflict’, said Rear Admiral Tony Williams, the MOD’s national armaments director. ‘Aerospace UK has the potential to sit within that as a trusted agent and critical friend, and it is an approach we think is worth developing as our requirements mature – particularly where it helps grow sovereign UK capability and the skills base behind it’.
Aerospace UK’s newly opened London office – located less than a kilometre from UK MOD, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) and other government headquarters at Whitehall – puts the team within walking distance of the customers it supports.
‘The mandate of the statement of intent changes the entire personality of Aerospace UK’, Sandy said. ‘This journey began as a focused engagement with our customers. It has grown into a broad opportunity to serve as a trusted technical advisor and partner to solve complex problems for our customers for the UK as it continues developing its military space enterprise. Part of that is using our position to help grow the UK pipeline behind it – the industry and the people that will sustain these capabilities for the long term.’
