{"id":467447,"date":"2026-03-10T08:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467447\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T08:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:37:07","slug":"university-of-southampton-joins-uks-17bn-space-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467447\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Southampton joins UK&#8217;s \u00a317bn space sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The new institute is working with the UK&#8217;s largest regional space cluster, Space South Central, which connects the university with 130 space-related businesses across Hampshire, Surrey and the Isle of Wight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The university said it built on its &#8220;65-year heritage of education and research in space science, aeronautics and astronautics&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scientists were recently awarded more than a million pounds through the UK Space Agency&#8217;s (UKSA) national space innovation programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The university said it would use the funding &#8220;to develop a plasma torch system, simulating the extreme thermal conditions spacecraft face during re-entry, as well as a sustainable water-based propulsion system for satellites&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Middleton added the industry &#8220;needs the expertise of a university like Southampton to train the next generation, create new jobs and companies, and ensure that space is sustainable in the long term&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We will be drawing on our expertise in electronics, fundamental science, astronautics, artificial intelligence and many others, to enrich the UK space industry and support the national space strategy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">UK space policy expert and former UKSA chief executive Prof David Parker worked with Prof Middleton to set up the institute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said their vision was &#8220;to drive sustainable, local and national economic growth by becoming one of the top UK universities for space education, novel space science, technology, and applications of space data here on Earth&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new institute is working with the UK&#8217;s largest regional space cluster, Space South Central, which connects the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-467447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}