The Northumbria Space Laboratory (NSL) is a cross-departmental initiative at Northumbria to develop new technology, foster industrial partnership with the North East region for space, and train the next generation of scientists and engineers for UK Space PLC, through:​

  • Business – local industries, small business. NSL will be a service provider to facilitate / enable greater engagement of local businesses in the space industry, e.g. Isocom / Northumbria partnership.
  • Science & Technology – Knowledge Transfer, inspiring projects, high profile research, e.g. space application of laser communications research.
  • Education – In-house training of the next generation (undergraduate/postgraduate) space engineers, student facing.

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Satellite Communications

Space Weather

Space Law and Policy

Space Launchers and Vehicle Space Re-entry

Aerospace Medicine and Rehabilitation Laboratory

Northumbria University

Northumbria Space Laboratory has strong involvement in missions, cubesats and instrument design, including:

  • Science lead of the UKSA-funded Lagrange L5 in-situ space-weather mission concept currently in Phase B2
  • PI of UKSA NSIP “Laser Optical Communications for CubeSats” project
  • Sitting on the UKSA Space Programme Advisory Committee (SPAC)
  • Sitting on ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC)
  • Forming and running the EU-funded FLARECAST project (with UK Met Office/MOSWOC)
  • co-Chairing the ESA Space Weather Working Team “Space Weather Forecasting” Topical Working Group
  • Co-I on SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer)
  • Science co-I for the STIX instrument on ESA’s flagship Solar Orbiter mission
  • Team member for the SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing) instrument on ESA’s PROBA-2 satellite
  • PI of the SULIS (Solar CubeSats for Linked Imaging Spectro-polarimetry) mission concept (http://sulis.space), originally proposed (and shortlisted) to the STFC Priority Projects Call
  • Sitting on the Planetary Sciences and Exploration Working Group for ESA (e.g. Lunar Gateway)
  • A key team member of QB50 CubeSat project with responsibility for defining and providing miniaturised scientific instrumentation to act as hosted payloads on 36 CubeSats built in universities around the world.
  • Leading, designing, building, testing and operations of UCLSat, a 2U CubeSat that operated in LEO in 2017