Guess the number of times that the UK Space Agency met with officials from the Ministry of Defence in 2024
Posted: 21st April 2025
130 meetings.
That’s how many times officials from the UK Space Agency met with officials from the Ministry of Defence in 2024 alone!
A Freedom of Information request submitted by Space Watch UK has revealed that executives from the UKSA delivery board – the senior leaders responsible for managing and delivering Space Agency activities – and representatives of the MoD averaged more than two meetings a week across last year – including one about a top-secret national security project. Details about this ‘area of work’, ‘which is highly confidential and not in the public domain’ were redacted from the FOI response.
The numbers couldn’t make it clearer: the UK’s space programme, purportedly a ‘civil’ endeavour, is inextricable from military operations, capabilities, and aspirations. Meeting details show plainly the aspiration to integrate military capabilities into space programmes over virtually the entire remit of the Agency’s work – launch programmes, satellite communication, earth observation, and international co-operation.