The UK aspires to join Spain and Portugal as members of the Atlantic Constellation and contribute with a new Pathfinder satellite designed and built by a UK-based company that adds to the innovative data exchange and monitoring network of Land and coasts. , the British Space Agency announced this Tuesday.

This new commitment, announced on the opening day of the British Space Conference in Belfast, will further strengthen the UK’s national capabilities in Earth observation technology and will complement the UK’s contribution to the EU’s Copernicus programme, the European Space Agency and bilateral missions.

The British Space Agency provides three million pounds to support the construction of the new Pathfinder satellite, which will be one of the first in Constellation, co-funded by Open Cosmos, which is based at the Harwell Space Campus in Oxfordshire.

The Atlantic Constellation is a flagship global project for the development of a constellation of small satellites for ocean, Earth and climate monitoring. Satellites built in the UK will have the same layout and design This aircraft will be launched in the same orbital plane as three other orbital aircraft from Portugal which is the first collection of constellations. This will significantly increase the frequency of visits at the start of the Constellation, offering valuable, regularly updated data and supporting critical services such as natural disaster detection, monitoring and mitigation.

UK Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology Andrew Griffith said: “Earth observation will play a vital role in tackling global challenges such as climate change and disaster relief, providing the data we need quickly while supporting key UK industries such as agriculture and energy . To working with Open Cosmos on the new satellite and supporting our Atlantic partners, Spain and Portugal, we can harness space technology for shared purposes, while creating new skills and future job opportunities to grow the UK economy.”

Open Cosmos is a Barcelona company The growing company, which recently added two more satellite missions to OpenConstellation, successfully launched on the 11th and raised $50 million in Series B funding from high-impact investors to accelerate its international growth and expand its product offerings.

Rafael Jorda Siquier, CEO of Open Cosmos, said that “building a shared satellite constellation is a very effective way to have a variety of data about any region of interest. The UK joining Spain and Portugal in the Atlantic Constellation is a major step forward in the national EO strategy and we are very proud of it. “Open Cosmos has been contracted to deliver the UK’s first Pathfinder satellite.”