The UK government has published a new space strategy, backed by £7.8bn to 2030. It brings the government's civil and military space spending under one plan, with national security, defence and growth at its centre.

The UK Space Strategy was published jointly on 8 September by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the Ministry of Defence and the UK Space Agency.

It replaces the National Space Strategy published in 2021. The government estimates that the UK space sector is worth £18.6bn and supports more than 55,000 skilled jobs.

The strategy identifies four priorities: satellite communications, tracking what is happening in space, servicing and building spacecraft and access to space.

The North East is already involved in three of those four areas. Filtronic and aXenic supply satellite communications technology, Durham University is developing systems to track objects in space and Lockheed Martin has proposed a facility where spacecraft could be assembled and tested. The region has no launch capability.

That mix did not appear from nowhere. Much of the region's relevant engineering was built for telecoms and defence before being redirected into the growing space market.

The strategy's broader aim is to keep important space-related skills and services available in Britain, even when projects involve international partners. The North East already supplies some of them. The question is how far they can grow.

Satellite communications is the largest funding line, with £2.8bn committed across the four financial years from 2026-27 to 2029-30.

The money will support two main programmes. The low-Earth-orbit connectivity programme is worth up to £160m to March 2030. Skynet is the Ministry of Defence's satellite communications network. The strategy does not separate out its share of the funding.

Filtronic, at NETPark in Sedgefield, took 68 per cent of its revenue in the year to 31 May 2026 from SpaceX. Its equipment goes into the ground stations that keep Starlink's satellites connected to Earth. Amplifiers strengthen the signal. Transceivers send and receive it at high frequencies.

Filtronic's particular strength is a very high-frequency part of the radio spectrum. It can carry more data but is harder to manage because the signal weakens more quickly and creates more heat.

The company uses gallium nitride, a specialist material used in advanced chips, to produce powerful signals. That work has made it a supplier to the world's largest satellite constellation.

SpaceX accounted for 83 per cent of Filtronic's revenue the previous year, so the share has fallen. But the relationship has grown to include a $62.5m order for Filtronic's high-frequency technology for Starlink.

This gives the region something concrete: a company already selling space-related equipment at scale. Its ground-station hardware could also be relevant to government networks, although any Skynet work would depend on security, technical specifications and procurement requirements.

aXenic, also based at NETPark, makes components that put data onto laser beams. Laser links can carry more data in lighter equipment and can be harder to intercept than radio.

The business has been at NETPark since 2009. It became aXenic after a 2015 management buyout of Finisar's UK operation. It has also worked with Thales Alenia Space on components for telecommunications satellites under a Horizon 2020 project.

Together, Filtronic and aXenic show how existing North East engineering can feed into the satellite communications market.

This work involves tracking satellites, monitoring debris and understanding when spacecraft move close to each other.

The strategy puts £85m into a National Space Operations Centre, £149m into the European Space Agency's Vigil mission and £880m into wider space control and surveillance.

Durham University Space Research Centre, known as SPARC, launched in November 2024 with £5m of funding. It is developing optical instruments to track objects in several different orbits around Earth.

SPARC is also involved in a tracking-radar project being developed by Australia, the UK and the United States.

In a policy brief, SPARC said it was developing instruments for real-time monitoring across those orbits. It also disclosed that it had tracked the Russian satellite Luch-Olymp K2 as it manoeuvred close to other spacecraft.

SPARC director Professor James Osborn runs the centre with co-director Dr Carly Beckerman, who works on space law and the political questions raised by satellite movements. The centre therefore combines the technical work of tracking objects with research into what those movements mean.

The strategy's smallest funding line, at £40m, covers technology for servicing and building spacecraft. Lockheed Martin's proposed facility in County Durham would be a separate capital project worth more than twice as much.

Lockheed Martin has proposed an £85m facility at NETPark where spacecraft would be assembled and tested before launch. This is different from making the individual components. It is the stage where those components are brought together into a finished spacecraft.

The company said in March 2026 that the facility could create around 500 jobs initially and build systems for UK use and export. It remains a proposal and needs government approval.

Durham University's Centre for Advanced Instrumentation is already at NETPark. Its roughly 70 staff and research students build precise instruments that use light. Those skills can be used in both observatories and satellites, giving the region a research base alongside the proposed factory.

Access to space is the fourth priority. The North East has no identified launch facility or proposal.

The strategy puts £148m into European rocket programmes and £30m into SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland. The UK's existing sites for launching rockets are in Shetland and Sutherland. None is in the North East.

The North East Space Skills and Technology Centre, or NESST, is a £50m facility at Northumbria University's Newcastle campus.

Northumbria contributed £25m, Lockheed Martin £15m and the UK Space Agency £10m. The centre is due to open this autumn, with laboratory, testing and teaching space.

Northumbria forecasts more than 350 direct jobs and a £260m contribution to the regional economy over 30 years.

UK Space Agency chief executive Dr Paul Bate, announcing the investment in November 2023, said the sector "has been concentrated in London and the South East, but in recent years we've seen the emergence of vibrant clusters across the whole of the country".

That is the practical role for NESST. It puts training and satellite testing 30 miles from the NETPark companies the centre is intended to serve.

Business Durham leads Space North East England, funded by the UK Space Agency and grown out of the former North East Satellite Applications Centre of Excellence.

The Satellite Applications Catapult puts the cluster at more than 50 companies, close to 1,400 jobs and over £113m of annual income. The cluster also brings together five universities, Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside, alongside the Centre for Process Innovation.

The important point is that the North East has both business and research capability. Its strengths include radio technology, advanced electronic materials and laser technology. Much of that work began in telecoms and defence before moving into space.

The next material decision is whether the government approves Lockheed Martin's proposed facility. If it does, the 500 jobs would add around a third to the cluster's current headcount and bring final spacecraft assembly to County Durham.

The other test will be the low-Earth-orbit connectivity contracts running to March 2030. They will show whether the government's satellite communications spending turns into named suppliers in the North East.

Britain's space strategy gives the region a clear opportunity, but not a guarantee. The North East already has a commercial foothold, research expertise and a potential new facility. Its ability to turn those assets into jobs and contracts will depend on the decisions that follow.