UK ESA Centre

I heard confirmation today of a piece of news that I've been aware of for a while now through work, but has been looking more and more likely to happen as time has gone on.

The UK is to get an ESA facility, and that facility will be based here on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus near Oxford.


The full story is on the BBC website here.

ESA, the European Space Agency, is Europe's answer to NASA. They currently have facilities in most major European countries, but currently the UK is the major exception. The rumours are that this new facility will specialise in climate science and space robotics, but I haven't heard anything more specific yet.

Depending on exactly what the focus of this facility will be this news may cause me to be faced with a career dilemma. Whilst my work as a mechanical engineer at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is never boring we always seem to miss out on the really really exciting stuff, such as Mars surface rovers, or technology for manned spaceflight. With the next few decades looking pretty interesting with regards to space exploration, with manned missions to the Moon and maybe even Mars on the horizon. I would hate to find myself designing yet another spectrometer or radiometer for yet another Earth observation satellite if the people next door are getting involved with all of that.

I shall keep both of my eyes wide open to see what opportunities this new centre might offer in the way of jobs for a mechanical engineer.