Tech and AI
Thirteen million pounds split across sixteen satellite communications projects, including a broadband trial on the West Highland Line and reprogrammable payloads in orbit
By Staff Writer | 19 August 2026
The UK Space Agency named the sixteen projects on 18 August. One will trial satellite broadband on one of Scotland's most remote railway routes, part of wider work to put satellite connectivity on every mainland train. Another develops a processor whose functions can be rewritten after launch instead of being fixed before it.
The money is 13 million pounds of government funding, delivered through the European Space Agency's Advanced Research in Telecommunication Systems programme. Sixteen projects share it. The awards named in the announcement run from 684,000 pounds to 2,100,000 pounds, so this is early-stage development money rather than deployment funding, and the announcement is candid that it is aimed at the companies and workers building the systems rather than at the systems themselves.
The rail trial
The project called SODOR, run by CGI, will trial satellite broadband on ScotRail's West Highland Line. That route is scenic and remote in roughly equal measure, and the two are connected: mobile coverage there has defeated conventional trackside engineering for years because the cost per mile of track has never justified the masts. Putting the link overhead removes the ground problem rather than solving it.
The trial supports wider work to introduce satellite connectivity on all mainland trains, which is a materially larger undertaking than one line in the Highlands.
For anyone who has costed rural telecoms infrastructure, the appeal is obvious. There is no wayleave to negotiate, no mast base to build, no access track to a hillside, and no power supply to run to it. What is untested at scale is whether the service holds up through cuttings, tunnels and tree cover, which is precisely what a line like that one will find out.
By backing brilliant British companies, we are not only furthering our status as one of the world's leading space powers, but creating high-quality jobs and new opportunities across the UK.
Liz Lloyd, space minister
The other awards
The largest named award, 2,100,000 pounds, goes to Exobotics for STARS, working with Archangel Lightworks and the University of Nottingham on optical communications. The intention is the first satellites in a future data relay network, moving mission-critical data between satellites and the ground faster than the current arrangement allows.
Airbus Defence and Space UK in Portsmouth receives 1,500,000 pounds for Theia, extending an existing on-board processor so that particular functions can be tailored to a mission and then reprogrammed and updated while the spacecraft is in orbit. At present a processor is locked into a fixed set of functions before launch and stays that way. Being able to change them afterwards alters the whole depreciation case for a satellite, which is an argument about asset life rather than about engineering.
Orbital Astronautics at Goring-on-Thames takes 1,710,000 pounds for QUAKES, a compact portable ground station able to connect to several satellites at once and handle anything from low-bandwidth sensor traffic to high-speed broadband. Because it needs almost no fixed infrastructure and can be deployed quickly, the announcement points it at both civil and defence use in difficult or remote places. AWTG in London receives 684,000 pounds to apply AI to satellite broadcasting.
Farming, and the departmental figures
The agricultural project, GAUFF, run by Farmer Charlie, is developing satellite-enabled sensors cheap enough for ordinary use, giving growers live data on land and crops. The announcement expects the technology to be available by the end of next summer.
By combining affordable sensors with satellite connectivity, we are making it easier for growers to make informed decisions, improve productivity and farm more sustainably anywhere in the UK.
Betty Bonnardel MBE, chief executive of Farmer Charlie
The department puts the UK space sector at more than 55,000 people and 18.6 billion pounds brought into the economy each year, both figures carrying its own footnote in the announcement. Further projects in the sixteen are directed at deep space and lunar communications. Nothing here is built yet, and the interesting question in two years will be how many of the sixteen produced hardware that flew.