
Company Profile
Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd (The Catapult) is one of nine Catapults, uniquely established to transform the UK’s capability for innovation in specific areas and to help drive future economic growth.
We help organisations make use of, and benefit from, space technologies, and bring together multi-disciplinary teams to generate ideas and solutions in an open innovation environment. Many of the programmes run by the Catapult are tailored for business support and acceleration across a wide range of technologies and markets.
The Catapult has delivered highly successful outcomes to SMEs in partnership with Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Bucks LEP), now Buckinghamshire Council (Bucks Council), and is delighted to be able to support the Launchpad scheme to include other contributors within the Westcott environment.
Our Business Innovation team demonstrates success in programmes supporting Innovate UK, the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency as well as corporate sponsors and consortiums.
Services Offered
The Satellite Applications Catapult is uniquely placed to be able to offer a range of facilities at Westcott, including technology support services and business innovation support, using a modular approach.
Technical Facilities at Westcott
Several Catapult technical facilities based in Westcott may be offered to participants for prototyping and testing purposes, depending on suitability and availability. These are:
Drone Test and Development Centre – This facility offers a secure environment to test and develop drone products and services, including capabilities that support Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS), pilot training, and remote flight operations. It provides a safe, real-world environment for companies to test and develop drones, their applications, and their procedures. The facility includes three 300m² hangars dedicated as workshop spaces for UAV companies, with flexible workbench options. The resurfaced 270m runway also offers four dedicated landing pads for vertical, or vertical to horizontal take-off.
Additive Manufacturing – We offer a range of additive manufacturing capabilities to companies looking to build complex, strong geometries and lightweight parts in a cost-effective way. The 3D printing equipment includes an LCD Resin 3D printer, a Stereolithography (SLA) Resin 3D printer, a FDM 3D Printer and the MetalFab1 3D printer.
MetalFAB1 – The specific technology of the MetalFAB is Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). It has a large build platform with net build envelope of 420 x 420 x 400 mm. The material that is currently being used is Inconel 718 with a layer thickness of 40 μm. It has 2 lasers of 500W and has an accuracy of ~0.05mm. It is possible to remotely access and monitor the printing processes with continuous video feed.
In-Orbit Servicing and Manufacturing (IOSM) Yard – This facility provides users with a dynamic platform to validate their technologies prior to launch using robotic equipment to simulate a microgravity environment. One robot is fixed to the floor, and the second robot is mounted on a 17m travel track, allowing for the simulation of approach and docking manoeuvres with large payloads (up to 120 kg). With tracking systems and advanced motion control, the system can achieve high levels of accuracy and repeatability, allowing representative mission testing to be carried out. Technologies that could be validated on the system include guidance sensors & software, docking mechanisms, and servicing robots.
Future Networks Development Centre – This facility provides access to testing and developing new services and products by accessing the latest wireless applications service equipment and satellite data. It serves as a test centre for all ITU Primitives, providing total standardised COTS testing facilities. We also offer 5G test and development Ofcom licences from 700MHz to 4200MHz and satellite and terrestrial capabilities such as a fully virtualized 5G core and state-of-the-art O-RAN deployments.
Modular Support Package
Our proposal consists of a modular set of workshops that can scale up or down depending on the maturity and requirements of the participants. These can be run as stand alone, individual workshops or as a series. Whilst these can be delivered remotely, previous experience suggests in-person sessions yield better collaboration and outcome. With this in mind, all modular session pricing includes the cost of a technology enabled meeting room in Westcott. The module descriptions are follows:
- Understanding – this session focusses on an initial company pitch, the definition of the problem they aim to solve, what makes them unique and what the current market looks like.
- Technical IP – using remote collaborative tools such as Miro, we take a deep dive into the proposition and create a technical road map, looking at value chains, recommended markets, growth and development areas.
- Business / Go-to -Market – exploring potential business models by identifying the right stakeholders, target market, buyer personas, communication strategies and competitive landscape, to build a comprehensive go-to-market strategy.
- Pitch and Present – helping refine and enable businesses to create and present their pitch deck to get themselves investor ready.
- Additional Sessions – bespoke (optional) 1-2-1 sessions to strengthen and support the operational growth of a business in the areas of accountancy, IP, HR and bids and grants.
The session durations are indicative and may change due to the needs of the different businesses. The modularity of our approach will allow applicants to combine specialist support from other delivery partners enabling user and provision flexibility and support – e.g. combining propulsion prototyping/testing with Module 4 Pitch and Present to prepare for future funding rounds.
Enhanced Consultancy Services
The Catapult can provide further add on services that allow us to do a deeper dive into a specific technical, strategic or business growth areas. The provision of these services will depend on the availability of correct expertise or access to facilities. Sessions could include a deeper dive into a specific area of interest and would usually take place over 1 x 2 hour session. These could be added onto other modular sessions or as a standalone piece of work (for a more mature company). In addition, these sessions could compliment support provided by other supply partners in the programme, to enhance the offering.
Meeting Rooms and Hot Desk Facilities
The Catapult offers a selection of rooms with smart tech to enable on-line meetings and collaborative working. Rooms can be booked on an hourly or daily basis depending on requirements, whilst competitively priced workstations are available to book in advance on a daily pay per use rate
