Notice

Call for Bilateral Space Science and Exploration Missions - Invited Full Proposal Phase for Bilateral Missions (Category A)

Updated 14 October 2022

1. INTRODUCTION

Following the review of entries for the UK Space Agency’s Statement of Intent (SOI) Phase for participation in a bilateral Space Science and Space Exploration (SS&SE) mission (Category A), we are pleased to invite you to proceed to the next stage and submit a full proposal.

The new bilateral programme is for involvements in Space Science and Space Exploration missions with international partners. This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) invites proposals in three categories:

• Category A: Proposals (by invitation only, following the recently completed SOI assessment) for participation in bilateral (or multilateral) space science and exploration (SS&SE) missions/mission candidates, which are already in advanced state of discussion, and which require funding throughout the current CSR period. This is expected to include partnership on science instrument developments and/or data processing developments for the data pipeline, on missions led by another space agency.

• Category B: Proposals from teams wishing to study new bilateral SS&SE mission concepts and convert them to full proposals, which could be submitted for future calls after 2022. Funding would be for teams requiring short term (3 months up to 31 March 2023)

• Category C: Proposals from institutions seeking to provide expert training and support, including early concurrent design activities) to new teams wishing to develop ideas for bilateral SS&SE missions for submission to future Calls. One grant will be awarded (this is likely to be a one-off setup package, comprising start-up/FTE costs to approximately £100k for the period January to March 2023).

The Category B & C opportunities will be addressed by separate AOs to be released shortly.

Funding for Category A proposals will initially be made to 31st March 2025. Continuation funding after this date will be subject to standard Government Spending Review and UK Space Agency approvals processes, as for all Agency funding commitments.

This invited Announcement of Opportunity is for a full proposal for the Category A opportunity only. The guiding principle for the evaluation of the proposals will be science excellence and science value to the UK, but will consider feasibility, affordability, and value for money, as well as potential economic and societal benefits.

For all Categories: We will hold a bidders’ Briefing and Q&A session on 3rd October 2022 which should be attended by all potential bidders in Categories A, B and C. The session will be held using Microsoft Teams. We welcome enquiries from potential bidders for clarification of any aspect of the Call outside of the Q&A session, but to maintain a level playing field any answers provided by the Agency may be published on the CEOI website (www.ceoi.ac.uk).

Proposals will be subjected to competitive peer review by the UK Space Agency and UKRI, using established methods for assessment of funding of UK involvement in missions.

The UK Space Agency will invite successful bidders to submit normal JeS forms to the UKRI Research Grants system for processing under the UK Space Agency/UKRI service level agreement (SLA), analogous to the process used for research grants in support of ESA missions.

The UKRI grant regulations specify that for any award made to an academic institution, the UK Space Agency contribution will be 80% FEC, and the academic institution must cover the remaining 20%. We will not seek match funding in addition to this. Overheads are calculated according to UKRI’s standard grant regulations.

Please note that only UK national organisations eligible for UKRI grants can receive funding from this call. This AO is open to Higher education institution (HEIs) and other research organisations based in the UK. We expect international partners to provide their own funding for these joint mission programmes.

You should also bear in mind the impact of current political issues, potential difficulties with export licenses and travel when selecting partners for missions. These issues should be clearly stated in the application, with mitigating actions included. UK Export Control Office (ECO) assessment and clearance is a condition of funding at all times. It will be necessary to maintain briefing and engagement between the project and ECO throughout the entire development programme.

The UK Space Agency and UKRI will only award grants to proposals judged to be of sufficient quality against the assessment criteria. The UK Space Agency reserves the right to re-issue the Call in a revised form if all allocated funds are not utilised. The UK Space Agency reserves the right to vary the amount, duration or recipient of funding available to exceptional proposals.

This first competition will be managed by the Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation. The UK Space Agency funds the CEOI, which is a partnership of Airbus Defence and Space Ltd, QinetiQ Ltd, University of Leicester and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. See www.ceoi.ac.uk. It is anticipated that the transition of successful proposals to grants, and future calls, will be managed by staff in the UK Space Agency TSE Directorate.

1.1 Reference Documents

The following documents contain information that is relevant to this Call:

• [RD1] National Space Strategy: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-space-strategy
• [RD2] UK Space Agency Corporate Plan 2022-2025: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-space-agency-corporate-plan-2022-25
• [RD3] UKRI T&Cs and Guidance for Full Economic Costs (FEC) for academic Partners: https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/UKRI-291020-guidance-to-fEC-grant-terms-and-conditions.pdf

2. SS&SE Category A Full Proposal Description

The proposal shall be no more than 25-pages, using Times New Roman 12 size font. using the template and bid guide given in the Annex below. Please keep to the specified page limits. Material outside of the page limits may not be considered. The deadline for proposal submission is noon on 31st October 2022.

The proposal shall be for involvement in a bilateral SS&SE mission development which is already in an advanced state of planning with a major international agency. The space mission development activity shall start in early January 2023.

The schedule shall feature a kick-off meeting, quarterly progress meetings (and/or participation by UK Space Agency staff in partner mission/project reviews as appropriate), a mid-term review, and lastly a final review, all in conjunction with the UK Space Agency science & exploration bilateral team. On award of a grant, the project management material and high-level project plan presented in the proposal should be updated to a concise project management plan and scope of work, to be presented alongside the technical description in support of the kick-off meeting.

Bidders must provide a statement of acceptance of the standard UK Space Agency/UKRI Terms and Conditions (T&Cs), defined in the RD3. Bidders should note that these T&Cs will not be open to negotiation and that in submitting this statement, you are accepting the T&Cs on behalf of your organisation.

3. Assessment Criteria

The following questions and criteria will be used by the peer review board to assess the proposals under this Call. Proposers are expected to align their submission to address the criteria listed below.

3.1 Science quality of the mission

• The inherent quality of the science, irrespective of the UK involvement.
• Credible partnership with overseas space agency(s) on a well-defined international collaboration for a space science/exploration mission.

3.2 Science value to the UK

• UK involvement in a mission – the cost versus benefit of having a UK-based PI versus the UK taking a more limited role in a mission.
• The specific scientific benefit of the UK involvement for e.g., but not restricted to: is there access to data during a proprietary period, or will involvement in the instrument /data centre allow enhanced understanding of the data, so enabling more, or better quality, publications?
• Missions should allow the UK R&D community to build on its existing strengths and/or develop capability in new areas that will enable the UK to position itself for future missions and science return.
• Fit to UKRI’s science strategy and the National Space Strategy.

3.3 Economic Impact and Industrial partnerships/roles

• Is there a clear downstream academic or industrial benefit by e.g., bringing a new technology to market or providing a first flight of a new UK technology which might go on to attract significant export income from future missions?
• Does the project have the capacity to develop spin-off opportunities as evidenced from past projects or the presence of a specific business unit to manage this?
• Are there strategic partnerships involved within the mission which could aid the UK in this and future missions?
• Will the project lead to future programmes which develop strategic capability for the UK, including developing novel designs or developing new expertise? Does it provide upskilling to develop a group or science area?
• Is there Knowledge Exchange potential for spinning out new knowledge in all its variants into other areas of UK space development such as earth observation, space weather or communications, i.e., cross-disciplinary?

3.4 Societal impact

1. Skills and education development – will this mission help attract talent into the space sector?
2. Societal engagement, outreach, and involvement – inspiration, publicity.
3. Utility – relevance to everyday life.
4. Other benefits to the UK public good.

3.5 Timeliness

• Mission status – viability of expected future commitment to funding from other partners, from the start of the project through to operations.
• Mission likelihood – position in selection procedures, there may be a lot of scientific interest in a project, but the project is not technically ready to proceed e.g., there is no evidence that the project can be turned into a practical and achievable mission.
• Project development is tied to a particular event/scientific timing such as the solar cycle, comet appearance etc.; the project timing is driven by cosmic events.
• Competition with other international agencies – if the UK is not included in ground-breaking and innovative missions the science and economic benefits of a launching similar subsequent missions could be of lesser value to the UK.

3.6 Value for Money

• Assessment of whether the anticipated total cost of the project represents value for money.
• Focuses UK effort and investment in ways that best play to our strengths when it comes to science payload (detectors etc.).
• Projects which either allow the UK to build on existing strengths or develop capability in new areas to enable the UK to position itself for current and future economic return.

3.7 Risk

• Risk can be programmatic, reputational, scientific, or technical
• Different types of risk must be weighed against each other i.e., scientific risk may be more or less significant than financial risk; the risk of not doing something versus the risk of undertaking something brand new.
• Financial risk is implicitly included in consideration of the programmatic and technical risks. Scientific risk assessment should include consideration of whether the scientific return is of an ‘all or nothing’ type or infinitely malleable and whether it could be severely damaged by descoping.
• Reputational risks can include assessment of whether the project loading on the PI and their team is manageable. The proposing team should be assessed in view of their track record and capability.

4. SUBMISSION AND CONTACT INFORMATION

Only the lead institution should submit the application. Proposals should be submitted to the University of Leicester administrator, who will act on behalf of the UK Space Agency and CEOI, as follows:

• Electronically in PDF format. The proposal should be contained via email in a single PDF file, which must include your statement of acceptance of UK Space Agency/UKRI T&Cs and a short covering email providing a concise summary of the proposal, UK institutions involved and lead UK contact. (RD3). You will receive an email acknowledging receipt. Please contact Ms Moretti at the email below if you do not receive an acknowledgement within 24 hours.
• Submitted proposals will be treated in strict confidence, and only shared between UK Space Agency SS&SE Team Leaders, the designated peer reviewers, and the CEOI Leadership team members involved in managing the reviews and preparation of recommendations to UK Space Agency.

The electronic submission should be sent by email to the CEOI Technology Call Administrator, Ms Charlotte Moretti at cm738@leicester.ac.uk Enquiries about proposal handling and administration should also be directed to Ms Moretti.

For further information and formal enquiries regarding the scientific and international aspects of the call, contact:

Caroline Harper
UK Space Agency Space Science Lead

Email : caroline.harper@ukspaceagency.gov.uk

Sue Horne
UK Space Agency Space Exploration Lead

Email : sue.horne@ukspaceagency.gov.uk

Both at:

UK Space Agency, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1FL