UK Defence Innovation (UKDI), in partnership with the UK Space Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), has launched the fourth round of its competition to find innovative solutions to improve future space capabilities for defence and security.

‘Space to Innovate: Alpha Drop’ was launched in 2021 and since then, the UK Space Agency have awarded over £4.2 million in funding to 19 organisations.

The money has been used to find and develop novel technologies to give the UK an advantage over adversaries in the space domain.

The Delta drop aims to continue this innovation by finding and funding technologies that may not otherwise be developed in the commercial space sector but are critical for defence and government use across three challenges.

Challenge 1 will work with technologies to enhance future sensor to response capabilities, improving coverage and response times for Space Domain Awareness (SDA), Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and communications missions.

Challenge 2 will look at novel technology approaches to self-protecting space-based platforms.

The third challenge will focus on technologies to enable resilience against ground based electromagnetic threat.