EOMCR 2023 Update
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) are undertaking an Earth Observation Mission Capability Review (EOMCR).
The EO Investment Package (announced in December 2022) includes a £15m uplift in funding for the UK’s national EO technology programme over the period to March 2025. Whilst the EOMCR questionnaire itself is not a proposal for funds, the results will enable UK Government to target upcoming support for the sector. The findings will be used to design restricted competitions and competitive Announcements of Opportunity for grant funding through CEOI; beyond this, they will provide a key piece of evidence to help the UKSA, DSIT and wider government make the case for further investment in EO missions and instrumentation development.
The EOMCR will seek to understand the nature and current status of civil EO mission concepts being developed in the UK, for any ownership model or any purpose. This could include national missions, European Space Agency (ESA) mission candidates, bilateral or other international collaborative missions (outside of ESA), or fully commercial missions. They could be scientific, operational, or commercial in nature, or a combination thereof.
The completed EOMCR questionnaires will enable a strategic overview of the range and scale of the ambitions of the UK EO sector for new missions and instrumentation. The questionnaire will capture information on the ‘size and shape’ of potential missions, including rough order of magnitude (ROM) costs. The responses will be subject to peer review to ensure a robust assessment of user needs, plausibility, viability, and affordability. The results will enable an analysis of:
- Missions which are mature in concept, with partners in place, which could progress rapidly to a flight build and launch should funding be available;
- More speculative missions which are at an early stage and with interest from partners, which could benefit from further study feasibility studies and/or Technology Readiness Level (TRL) raising;
- The nature of any support that might be sought from government over the life of the mission, ranging from early stage technology development through to post-launch purchasing of data.
Responses will be considered within UK Government but will not be published, in order to protect commercial sensitivity. A high-level, commercial IP-free summary will be made available in due course.
The questionnaire and guidance can be found here. To submit a response, please send a completed questionnaire to ceoiadmin@le.ac.uk. The closing date for responses is Thursday May 4th at 4pm.
UPDATED: The closing date for responses has been extended to Friday May 19th at 4pm.
EOMCR 2020 Update
The closing date for responses is 9th September 2020 (revised date).
On behalf of the UK Space Agency, CEOI is performing a refresh of the Earth Observation Mission Capability Review (EOMCR), which was last undertaken in early 2018. The objective is to update the list of UK-led EO mission or instrument concepts that have sufficient maturity to go forward should a flight opportunity arise.
The TRUTHS mission, which was submitted to the 2018 EOMCR Survey, has since been proposed by the UK and accepted by ESA as an Earthwatch mission. It is currently preparing to enter Phase A/B1 study in ESA.
Details of the 2018 EOMCR and the final report from that review are available at the bottom of this page.
The overall objective of the EOMCR is to build a list of potential EO missions or instruments that are near flight-ready. Such missions/instruments could for instance be under a national programme, a bilateral or international mission, or through an ESA or other institutional programme. The end users could be commercial, public policy or academic. This reflects the UK government’s continued commitment to the UK space sector, and recognition of the role it will play after 1st January 2021, and additionally as an element of our economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. With this in mind, it is more important than ever to know what UK-led missions could be undertaken on both short and longer timescales.
If you would like to propose a new space-based Earth observation mission concept which would align well with the national space strategy, please complete and return the questionnaire form (see link below). This form contains a series of questions designed to capture an overview of each mission concept, its feasibility, approximate cost band, current development status, and its strength in relation to 5 defined criteria.
The initial step will be for UKSA supported by CEOI to assemble an updated list of potential missions, based on the mission information and self-assessments (provided by the mission proposal team) of science, technology and mission readiness. A later stage which we expect to carry out will include a peer review process by an EOMCR Panel (to be appointed) to evaluate the submissions. Concepts scoring highly in such an assessment may be asked to provide additional information. Should a funding opportunity arise, more mature missions may then go forward to a more detailed review process.
The CEOI Leadership Team will support the UK Space Agency in collating the information received through the questionnaires. This information will also be made available to the EOMCR Panel. All information will be held in confidence by the UK Space Agency, CEOI and the Panel in line with the UK Space Agency confidentiality rules.
Further information on this Capability Review and the questionnaire is contained in the Guidelines document (link below).
Completed questionnaires should be sent to UK Space Agency EO Team (UKSAEOT@ukspaceagency.gov.uk).
The closing date for responses is 9th September 2020 (revised date).
Documents:
Future EO Mission Questionnaire Guidelines (2020)
Future EO Mission Questionnaire (2020)
The 2018 EO Mission Capability Review
In spring 2018, the UK Space Agency and its EO Advisory Committee initiated a UK Earth Observation Missions Capability (EOMCR) Review.
The 2018 EOMCR report is available here (published August 2019).
The scope of the EOMCR is to build a list of potential EO missions or instruments that are near flight-ready. Such missions/instruments could for instance be under a national programme, a bilateral mission or through an ESA or other institutional programme. The end users could be commercial, public policy or academic.
The objective is to develop a catalogue of EO mission and instrument concepts to allow opportunistic or strategic support for missions. However there was no dedicated funding for national EO missions at the time of the review.
The activities included completion of a questionnaire followed by a CEOI Challenge Workshop – Future EO Missions and Instruments
Basic information was provided by members of the UK EO community about EO mission or instrument concepts and their strength in relation to 5 defined criteria. These concepts were assessed by a Panel of independent experts and the results presented to the meeting of the EO Advisory Committee in May 2018.
The CEOI Leadership Team supported the UK Space Agency in collating the information and preparing documents for the Panel.
Documents: