Guidance

Unlocking Space for Business programme

Updated 27 August 2024

1. The satellite ecosystem

Satellite data and services already underpin over 17% of UK GDP, delivering substantial and varied benefits across government, society and the economy. This includes supporting key markets and services which citizens, firms and the government rely on every day, playing a vital yet often hidden role.

Innovation is transforming the satellite economy:

• The cost of accessing ‘space’ is decreasing: The steep decline in satellite manufacturing and launch costs is improving the affordability of business opportunities
• The rise of satellite data availability and accessibility: Satellite innovation continues to improve the quality of sensors, frequency of data and integration capabilities
• There is more data, better processing, new insights: Data analytics and artificial intelligence are transforming the ability to process and extract value from satellite data
• The emergence of new business models: Significant capital inflows are fuelling the marketplace with new commercial satellite offerings for businesses

Business value is being unlocked through three satellite domains that play a key role across our economy:

• Satellite imagery is intelligently understanding, monitoring and predicting events and changes on Earth. With sensors evolving to capture new data more often on physical assets, emissions and the natural environment, what could these insights mean for you?
• Satellite connectivity and communications are extending the connectivity of your operations beyond cities, at sea, and on the move. Where are your connection ‘black spots’ and what could be enabled by improved connectivity speeds and data flows from satellites?
• Position, navigation and timing (PNT) is precisely geo-tracking assets, navigating journeys and time-stamping events. Ubiquitous GPS has already disrupted industries, but what could greater geo-positional accuracy and navigation insights support you to do?

2. About the programme

‘Unlocking Space for Business’ is a new programme being delivered by the UK Space Agency to support businesses to:

• Better understand and prioritise how innovations in satellite data and services, combined with complementary data sources, can drive businesses benefits
• Connect with leading data suppliers, aggregators, technology integrators and insight providers
• Apply for Government funding to support the delivery of benefits from satellite data and services, through pilot projects, data procurement or partnerships

The focus areas are Financial Services, and Transport and Logistics.

3. How satellite data and services can deliver value for you

There are three key types of commercial satellite data and services: Satellite imagery; satellite connectivity and communications; and satellite positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). These can be accessed through direct data and service exploitation.

They can also be combined with complementary data types and sources such: as geospatial and demographic data; enterprise, financial and customer data; internet of things (IoT) hardware and sensors; and mobile networks, remote sensing and drones. Together, these can be enabled by aggregators and marketplaces.

Together, these sources of data and services can provide business insights and decision-making support, including in relation to: weather, climate and commodities; assets, fleets and infrastructure; urban development and land use; environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and regulations.

Harnessing satellite data and services with complementary data sources can unlock new opportunities for businesses, from revenue growth and operational efficiencies to customer experiences and environmental, social and governance (ESG) benefits.

4. How to get involved

Unlocking Space for Business will deliver five key initiatives to support organisations:

4.1 Information Hub

Access to insights on how businesses can unlock value from satellites, with examples of activity from across the world:

• Discover insights and global success stories on how businesses are benefiting from satellite data and services
• Learn more about the programme and opportunities to get involved
• Register interest for our Events, Workshops, Learning and Development, and Funding Call

4.2 Insight and Networking Events

Interactive events that bring together customer and supplier ecosystems to connect and explore business opportunities:

• Hear from expert panels and join live demonstrations from leading satellite data and service providers
• Build connections and identify collaboration opportunities with suppliers and integrators
• Be a part of cutting-edge discussions and help shape UK direction on new use cases

4.3 Exploration Workshops

Expert perspectives to help your business identify, prioritise, and prepare to further benefit from satellite data and services:

• Access tailored expert guidance on potential areas where satellite data and services could drive significant impact
• Determine how satellite data and services can help address key business challenges for your organisation
• Shape a business case and delivery plan with cross-functional stakeholders

4.4 Learning and Development

Online and in-person learning to enhance business capabilities in buying, integrating, and exploiting satellite data and services:

• Learn from a range of experts on how to buy and maximise the value of data and services
• Access online learning materials in your own time on the topics of your choice
• Develop understanding of the success factors required for your organisation’s journey

4.5 Funding Call

Apply for Government funding to launch innovative pilots, acquire new data, and start delivering benefits for your organisation:

• Access funding to support investments, partnerships and projects using satellite data and services
• Receive support to launch pilots and turn opportunities into reality for your business
• Strengthen your brand as a leading innovator through government-led showcases

The Information Hub, Insight and Networking Events, Exploration Workshops, and Learning and Development initiatives will have no participation fees. Register for an event.

5. Example opportunity areas in Financial Services

5.1 Summary of opportunities

Claims management

The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is placing additional demands on the operations of insurance businesses. This includes an increase in processing customer claims and efforts to investigate fraud. Satellite imagery can support more efficient claims verification processes, reducing the need for on-site assessments, and improved responsiveness of customer pay-outs. This includes through innovative parametric insurance solutions, that pay out after specific events take place, or predefined conditions are met.

Loan monitoring

Banks can face challenges accessing up to date information on the progress of funded projects when evaluating loan portfolios and drawdown requests. This includes infrastructure-related, remote operations or dispersed agricultural activity. Satellite imagery enables timely remote monitoring of loan portfolios, helping to validate the use of funds with agreed purposes and timelines, and identifying potential risks.

Sustainable finance

Financial services have a pivotal role to support its customers transition to more sustainable business models and meet regulatory demands. However, the quality and availability of environmental data remains a significant challenge. Satellite imagery improves the measurement of essential climate and nature variables, enabling better alignment of lending, investment and insurance services to ESG objectives and disclosure obligations.

Other opportunity areas:

• Satellite imagery improves the assessment of physical assets and catastrophe risks to enhance pricing decisions and monitor overall portfolio risk.
• Satellite connectivity and positioning enables global asset usage tracking to underpin insure-as-you-go models (e.g., gig economy, rental schemes, cargo, heavy machinery).
• Satellite imagery provides data that aids in lending decisions for property assessments for mortgages and loans.

5.2 Learn more: Claims management

Summary: Satellite imagery can support more efficient claims verification processes, which results in improved responsiveness in customer pay-outs.

Challenges:

• Insurers are grappling with a rising tide of extreme weather events, with the number of natural catastrophes (NatCats) per year forecasted to increase 37% by 2025¹. This includes floods, hurricanes, droughts, landslides and fires.
• Consequently, the industry is contending with a surge in global customer claims for damages. 2022 was the second consecutive year in which insured losses from natural catastrophes exceeded the $100bn mark, reaffirming the trend of a 5-7% annual increase over the last 30 years that is only accelerating².
• This is adding financial and operational pressures of incident pay-outs, and an escalating risk of fraud. For example, in 2021, US fraud in disaster claims cost insurers as much as $9.2bn, adding 5%-10% to the total claims paid following a disaster³.

Opportunity areas:

• Access to data is critical to handling the increased demand for risk and damage assessments more efficiently, particularly through remote digitised methods rather than extensive on-site inspections.
• Satellite imagery presents valuable opportunities for harnessing near real-time data on environmental and weather conditions, as well as the state of assets prior to and following damage. This can include the extent of flooding, and damage to building structures.
• This capability for insurers expedites the claims verification process and fraudulent activity assessments, enabling quicker disbursement of pay-outs to customers. It can also play a key role advancing innovative parametric insurance solutions that rely on predefined triggers, further enhancing the responsiveness of insurers.
• Satellite imagery can also provide intelligence on post-event mitigation actions, for example responding to oil spills and geo-targeting emergency responses for severely affected areas.

Global insights:

Agriculture drought insurance:

• A French insurance business formed a strategic partnership with a satellite imagery operator, to provide an environmental variable data feed into their innovative drought parametric insurance services.
• This includes use of a soil water content variable, to monitor drought risks on a daily and global basis and is helping to protect farmers against drought-related losses.

Flood catastrophe risk management:

• A Swiss reinsurance business has a strategic partnership with a satellite operator, to advance their natural catastrophe services with satellite imagery. The service enables early flood warning systems, near real-time flood monitoring (within 24 hours), and expedited claims pay-outs globally.
• The partnership is expected to soon expand to other natural disaster including wildfires, wind and earthquakes.

5.3 Learn more: Loan monitoring

Summary: Satellite imagery can enable more timely and remote loan portfolio monitoring, validating the use of funds and identification of risk.

Challenges:

• When banking institutions make decisions on their loan portfolios, there can be gaps in up-to-date information on the progress of funded projects.
• This includes the construction of infrastructure projects such as buildings, roads, bridges, dams, solar farms, wind farms, as well as for agricultural activity where loans can cover large volumes of remote and widely dispersed land holdings.
• Irregular reporting and infrequent on-site inspections can limit the ability for banks to identify potential early warning signs and proactively manage issues.
• This can have a knock-on impact on a bank’s ability to limit bad debt in their loan books, guard against fraud, and efficiently managing drawdown financing at project milestones.

Opportunity areas:

• From building a new motorway to the harvesting of new crops, satellite imagery can provide lenders with high-resolution, scalable and close to real-time insights on the status of funded activities without the need for on-site visits.
• This is particularly beneficial for customers with remote projects such as offshore energy, or large and widely distributed portfolios in agriculture. In these instances, data captured from satellites can include the scale of construction activity across the planned site, to forecasting the output yield of crops for a season.
• Across infrastructure and agriculture, this can provide scalable improvements in operational efficiencies and proactive risk management. For example, in helping to make sure funds align with project goals and agreed timeframes, while addressing wider issues like activity delays and excessive costs.

Global insights:

Assessing construction progress:

• An Asian regional infrastructure bank is leveraging satellite imagery to conduct remote monitoring and due diligence on infrastructure projects across its lending portfolio, for example on metro rail projects.
• This service includes progress updates on request, as well as an assessment of potential environmental and social risks.

Agriculture loan monitoring:

• A Dutch financial services business has partnered with a satellite insights company to accelerate its financial offering for smallholder farmers through the use of satellite data and location intelligence.
• These technologies extend agricultural credit access by supporting key lending decisions, customer onboarding processes, and improve the risk assessment of loans for example through continuous crop health monitoring.

5.4 Learn more: Sustainable finance

Summary: Satellite imagery can improve the measurement of essential climate and nature variables, enabling better alignment to ESG objectives.

Challenges:

• The financial services sector has a critical role to incentivise and support industries transition to more environmentally-friendly business models, and address growing regulatory demands, for example nature-related disclosures.
• However, there are significant data challenges. For example, a global BlackRock survey of investors found 53% cite ‘poor quality or availability of ESG data’ as the biggest barrier to sustainable investing, higher than any other barrier tested⁴.
• Consistent, timely and verifiable data about business sustainability factors and risk exposure will be critical to drive progress in sustainable finance, including on emissions, pollutants and biodiversity conditions.

Opportunity areas:

• Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) help to provide a picture of climate change at a global scale. Of the 54 ECVs specified by the Global Climate Observing System, 60% can be addressed by satellite imagery⁵, which is unique in providing global coverage, consistent time series and daily updates of consistent observation.
• Examples of data captured from satellites includes deforestation and reforestation patterns from infrastructure projects, methane emissions and carbon storage levels in agriculture, air and water pollutants from manufacturing activity, and heat loss from real estate portfolios.
• Through a better understanding of customers and their supply chains, these insights can enable financial institutions to better align their lending, investment and insurance services to increasingly ambitious ESG objectives and disclosure obligations.
• They can also enable more tailored pricing models to incentivise customer behaviours and play a crucial role in supporting the growth of trusted carbon credit markets.

Global insights:

Carbon credits transparency:

• A Singapore-based global exchange is being established by a consortium of major international banks to be a leading carbon credits marketplace.
• Satellite imagery is being used as a key capability to enhance the transparency, integrity and quality of the carbon credit projects, such as on sequestration potential and biodiversity benefits.

Thermal efficiency within real estate:

• A large UK property and land data business has partnered with a satellite imagery operator to provide thermal datasets to the real estate market.
• This service can help to promote better thermal efficiency and insulation, supporting the drive towards environmentally sustainable infrastructure projects and real estate portfolios.

6. Example opportunity areas in Transport and Logistics

6.1 Summary of opportunities

Cargo tracking

Logistics firms who operate complex global supply chains require timely insights on the location and health of their cargo. This insight can proactively prevent delays, damage and theft. Satellite connectivity enables cargo tracking across multiple modes and geographies and can mitigate potential coverage gaps from ground-based networks. This strengthens supply chain planning and resilience with particular benefit for high-value and temperature-sensitive goods.

Fleet management

Transport operators are tasked with the planning, maintenance, security and operations of complex fleet networks. Satellite connectivity enables global coverage of communication channels between fleets and remote operators. This in turn enables more proactive vehicle maintenance, tracking capabilities and route instructions.

Autonomous mobility features

Manufacturers are increasingly pursuing capabilities for semi- and fully-autonomous mobility. However, they must continue to navigate technical and regulatory challenges to establish resilient connectivity and precise positioning data for key features. Satellite connectivity, positioning and navigation can facilitate improvements and additional resilience to autonomous features, through global connectivity networks and increasingly accurate geo-location data.

Other opportunity areas:

• Satellite imagery can contribute timely insights on weather and hazards, enabling safer journeys and operations that are more environmentally friendly across maritime, aviation and road.
• Satellite connectivity can provide enhanced internet and communication services for transport passengers to connect with family, entertainment options and emergency response.
• Satellite imagery enables new data inputs to support the assessment of emissions released by ships and other transport assets and infrastructure.

6.2 Learn more: Cargo tracking

Summary: Satellite connectivity can enhance the tracking of cargo to improve supply chain planning and resilience.

Challenges:

• In an increasingly globalised and complex trading environment, logistics firms have a critical need for secure and intelligent supply chains across air, land and sea.
• This requires the seamless, real-time exchange of cargo information to proactively prevent delays, prevent damages, and deter theft which all incur significant costs to businesses.
• For example, each year in the UK the cost of freight crime is around £430 million⁶ and delays from UK road freight cost £6 billion⁷.
• Ground-based connectivity solutions however can be constrained by global coverage gaps or performance limitations, for example when operating across remote areas or oceans.
• This limits the ability for operators to constantly track cargo and promptly respond to operational requirements and safety concerns, as well as monitor cargo that necessitates specific environmental conditions.

Opportunity areas:

• Satellite connectivity can enable tracking solutions that address coverage gaps and resiliency requirements across the supply chain.
• This is through global coverage, including in remote or hard-to-reach locations, across oceans and in rural areas – enabling improved end-to-end tracking of multimodal logistics routes.
• These services, in combination with precise satellite positioning information can further improve operational planning and accuracy of arrival time forecasts.
• Satellite connectivity can also underpin a global network of intelligent sensors (eg Internet of Things devices) to help monitor temperature and humidity levels of sensitive cargo, for example food produce or pharmaceutical products; the sensors can be used to trigger anomaly and theft alerts.

Global insights:

Monitoring of food freight:

• A UK food logistics company has deployed a cargo tracking solution that leverages satellite connectivity to fill its networks gaps for persistent monitoring capabilities.
• This enables shipping containers with perishable food freight to transmit data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices along their transport route, where there is currently poor or limited terrestrial connectivity.

Cargo tracking in remote areas:

• An international logistics technology supplier is leveraging satellite connectivity to enable the global tracking of assets, in areas where a cellular connection is not available, particularly on open oceans.
• This has enabled the monitoring of tens of thousands of trips valued at around $10 billion in total, with around 6% requiring some intervention to safeguard cargo, and therefore helping to protect around $500 million worth of goods.

6.3 Learn more: Fleet management

Summary: Satellite data and services can help to deliver improved real-time communication channels between global fleets and remote operators.

Challenges:

• With the growth of global supply chains, customer expectations for faster deliveries, and emergence of new services such as micro-mobility fleets, logistics and transportation businesses need to have a firm grasp on their fleet operations.
• Consistent, real-time data is required for effective fleet management solutions to monitor vehicle security, provide remote diagnostics and locate assets to improve operational planning.
• However, terrestrial networks only cover about 15%–20% of the planet’s surface⁸. This can undermine operators’ ability to manage their fleets, with blind spots in particular environments including remote regions or areas where communications infrastructure is lacking.

Opportunity areas:

• Global satellite connectivity can enable communication and tracking that address coverage gaps in remote and hard-to-reach locations.
• This can support enhanced predictive maintenance by reducing data gaps that may occur if connection is lost, provides backup resilience for communication between vehicle operators and can enable remote vehicle immobilisation.
• Real-time and precision location data enhances accurate monitoring of progress and estimated arrival times to help improve operational planning. This also underpins geofencing innovations such as sending alerts when vehicles are crossing boundaries or creating zones such as low-speed areas for micro-mobility bikes and scooters.
• Combining geographical and environmental parameters from imagery enables improved route planning using traffic, weather and road conditions. This can help to minimise supply chain disruptions but also lowers fuel consumption, both unlocking operational efficiencies and reducing fuel costs and emissions.

Global insights:

Maritime vessel monitoring:

• A UK-based international ship management business has installed broadband technology on some of its ships.
• This means that its vessels can communicate more easily with offshore systems and colleagues to improve the monitoring of vessels for operational and safety purposes.

Train tracking in remote areas:

• A South America-based train operator partnered with a satellite connectivity provider to access advanced real-time communication and telemetry services.
• This was to enable the tracking of trains across the regional network, and facilitate more reliable communications between drivers, maintenance teams and the operations control centre.

6.4 Learn more: Autonomous mobility features:

Summary: Satellite data and services can facilitate performance improvements and added resilience to autonomous mobility features.

Challenges:

• Vehicle manufacturers are poised to unlock a substantial opportunity through the adoption of semi- and fully-autonomous vehicle capabilities.
• However, the manufacturers must navigate the technical and regulatory challenges of establishing resilient connectivity for safety-critical functions, such as steering and braking, as well as ensuring the availability of increasingly precise positioning data.
• Direct positioning signals from satellites can have some accuracy and reliability challenges, whilst global cellular networks currently fall short of widespread coverage needs.
• For example, in the UK there is only 66% 4G coverage on major roads, 84% in urban areas, and 57% in rural regions⁹.

Opportunity areas:

• Satellite connectivity, integrated seamlessly with terrestrial networks, will be key to extending the global connectivity coverage for autonomous mobility.
• This connectivity can support with the core functionality and backup resilience of individual vehicles and robotic technologies across diverse terrains, particularly for remote operations and in rural areas.
• It can also unlock potential improvements in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications and help to meet the regulatory requirements for continuous telemetry reporting.
• Autonomous mobility functions are further being enhanced through precise location and navigation services, with innovative software that augments satellite signals. This can enable further optimisation of routing and response to live hazards.
• These technologies all support Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), which are bridging the gap to full autonomy and have a major role to play in improving safety and efficiency on our roads.

Global insights:

Precise positioning and navigation data:

• A leading US automotive business has collaborated with a satellite navigation and positioning software provider, to enable improvements in the autonomy assistance systems of future vehicles.
• The greater accuracy of this satellite location data (i.e. enhancement of GPS), compared to before implementation, enables features such as lane-level positioning, as well as the improvement of security features.

Mobile navigation and connectivity:

• An Asian car manufacturer is launching a network of proprietary satellites into space, seeking centimetre-level positioning accuracy and high-precision maps and connectivity. This is intended to enable intelligent and autonomous vehicle driving features of its portfolio.

7. Contact us

The UK Space Agency was founded in 2010, and supports a thriving space sector in the UK, which currently generates an annual income of £17.5 billion and employs 48,800 people across the country.

We are delivering UK Government’s National Space Strategy through three key pillars:

• Championing the power of space, encouraging other sectors to use space to deliver better services, tackle the climate emergency and support a more sustainable future.
• Catalysing investment by deploying funding and resources to multiply the value of commercial contracts and private capital to maximise the UK space sector long-term growth.
• Delivering missions and capabilities that use space science, technology and applications to meet national needs and advance our understanding of the Universe.

Contact us at unlockingspaceforbusiness@ukspaceagency.gov.uk to find out more.

8. Sources

1. Access Partnership (2022). Prensa Portal Innova; “The annual number of natural disasters will grow by more than 37% by 2025”.
2. SwissRe (2023). Insured losses from natural catastrophes break through USD billion threshold again in 2022.
3. National Insurance Crime Bureau (2022). NICB: Insurance Fraud Adds Billions of Dollars to Insurer Payouts After Disasters.
4. BlackRock (2020). Global Sustainable Investing Survey.
5. Copernicus (2022).  COP27 draws attention to the “vital importance” of Earth observation data.
6. National vehicle crime intelligence service (2022). Profile of HGV, Freight & Cargo crime across England & Wales 2022.
7. Vivid Economics (2019). The value of freight.
8. IOT Analytics (2022). Satellite IoT connectivity: Three key developments to drive the market size beyond $1 billion.
9. UK Government (2022). Connected & Automated Mobility 2025.