UK Ambitions for the Moon: Scoping Workshop

The last two decades have seen global interest in the applications and opportunities in space increase dramatically. Today LEO is seen as a new marketplace with potential across multiple existing and emerging sectors. Destinations beyond LEO are also being seen as viable locations for nascent activities of both scientific and commercial applications. The Moon is one of these and interest is growing in terms of a new permanent human presence, robotic exploration, and commercial exploitation, for which the UK aspires to be a key player.

The Satellite Applications Catapult and Arc for Space (www.arcforspace.uk) are organising an Explore Spark workshop to try and understand the ambitions of academia and industry regarding such Lunar activities, and to determine where commonality exists. The intent is to capture such interests and determine whether frameworks and partnerships like the Arc for Space can help to deliver key capabilities, facilities, and hubs to accelerate innovation, reinforce existing collaborations and create new communities to ensure the UK achieves its ambition to be a key player in the future exploration and exploitation of the Moon.

The workshop will be a physical event (no remote attendance) with limited numbers as we aim to run a slick and focused activity using Catapult facilitators with an aim to gather and collate the interests of organisations attending. The event will be on Thursday 29th March at Harwell and run from 10:00 to 15:00 with lunch provided. There is no cost to attend but we reserve the right to select the organisations who participate – whilst there is the opportunity to network, the intent is to focus on mutual discussion and capture of interests regarding the Moon.

Agenda

Welcome and Introductions

Setting the Scene – to understand what the UK wants to do on the moon

Our aims for this workshop

• To understand themes from SME’s and academia
• To identify any common themes
• To identify any potentials for collaborations

Activity 1- Where will the UK be in relation to the moon in 10 years time and what is your vision for lunar activities, exploring vision, capability and knowns and unknowns in achieving this

Activity 2- What are the most high impact/meaningful opportunities, and what might your role be/opportunities for collaboration

Activity 3- Revisit where will the UK be in relation to the moon in 10 years time

Summary and next steps

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