WASHINGTON — The European Union and the UK have reached a deal that may allow the UK to resume participation within the EU elements of the Copernicus Earth remark program.
The European Commission and the UK government announced Sept. 7 that they’d accomplished an agreement to allow the UK to be an element of Copernicus in addition to the Horizon Europe research funding program. The UK had been cut out of each programs after it accomplished its exit from the EU in 2020.
The announcement provided few details about how UK will likely be fully integrated back into Copernicus. “Information on the UK association to Copernicus will likely be uploaded shortly,” the EU’s Copernicus website stated. The UK government said that scientists within the country would regain access to data on Jan. 1, together with the flexibility of British firms to bid on contracts.
“The association of the UK to Copernicus will enable the UK’s access to a state-of-the-art capability to watch the Earth and to its services,” the 2 governments said in a joint statement.
“The UK’s association to Copernicus comes at an important moment,” the statement continued, “where the Copernicus space infrastructure and its information services will evolve further and their contribution to understanding and acting on environmental and climate change related challenges is more necessary than ever.”
The deal resolves what had been awkward situation for Copernicus, a joint effort of the EU and the European Space Agency. While the UK left the European Union, it remained a part of ESA, a separate organization, and contributed funding to ESA’s share of this system. Nevertheless, the UK’s departure from the EU created a funding gap for Copernicus and likewise limited UK participation in missions.
“The UK has a protracted history of experience and innovation in Earth remark, so it is great news that we’re going to proceed our association within the EU a part of Copernicus,” said Paul Bate, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, in a press release. “Participating in Copernicus will enable the UK space sector to proceed to play a big role in the event of critical missions that may enable us to watch our planet more effectively and lead a world effort through using satellite data to seek out recent solutions to the urgent challenge of climate change.”
Neither government disclosed how much the UK would contribute to the EU’s portion of Copernicus. The European Commission said the UK would offer a median of nearly 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion) a yr to the mix of Copernicus and Horizon Europe, a much larger program. In 2021, ESA said the UK contribution to the EU elements of Copernicus was valued at 750 million euros over several years.
The 2 government also announced within the statement that the deal can even give access to the EU’s Space Surveillance and Tracking, or EUSST, program, which provides space situational awareness services. It doesn’t include the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation program.