Space
From the edge
Most of what the modern world depends on – navigation, communications, climate monitoring, national security – runs through space. And some of the infrastructure that makes it possible is in Cornwall.
The Opportunity
Goonhilly Earth Station on the Lizard Peninsula reaches into deep space, tracking lunar missions and keeping the UK connected to what’s happening beyond the atmosphere. At Newquay, Spaceport Cornwall became the first site in Europe to offer horizontal satellite launch from home soil. And the National Drone Hub gives companies developing autonomous systems the multi-terrain test environment in an area of ultra low population density, vital, for UAS and BVLOS.
Operational, international and growing, Cornwall’s space sector is reaching further than almost anywhere else on Earth.
The UK’s space ambition starts here
The global space economy is worth £400bn – and the UK government has committed to capturing 10% of it by 2030. That ambition needs sovereign launch capability, world-class satellite communications and the facilities to test the autonomous systems that space, defence and climate monitoring depend on. Cornwall is the only place in the UK that has all three under one roof. From launch to deep space communications to drone development, Cornwall’s space sector covers the full picture, making it not just a regional asset, but a national one.
Where Earth meets deep space
Goonhilly Earth Station is one of only a handful of facilities on Earth capable of tracking and communicating with missions beyond the Moon. It has tracked NASA’s Artemis II mission, holds contracts with the European Space Agency and is being upgraded to monitor activity in orbit — giving the UK sovereign awareness of an increasingly contested space environment. When the world needs to know what’s happening above it, it calls Goonhilly.
Europe’s launchpad. Cornwall’s next frontier
Spaceport Cornwall at Newquay is the UK’s first horizontal launch site – and the only operational spaceport in Western Europe. In January 2023, it became the first site in the country’s history to host satellite launch attempts into orbit from home soil. Alongside it, the National Drone Hub provides segregated test and evaluation sandbox and environment that companies developing autonomous systems — for defence, FLOW, logistics, emergency response, agri-tech, security, surveillance and environmental monitoring — can’t find anywhere else in the UK. Cornwall isn’t waiting for the space economy to arrive: it’s building it.
£400bn global space economy
the UK is targeting 10% by 2030
Only operational spaceport in Western Europe
in Newquay, Cornwall
£143m GVA today
£250m GVA target by 2035
3,000+ high-value jobs
targeted by 2035
549 space and aerospace enterprises
already operating in Cornwall
£640k
UK Space Agency funding confirmed for Cornwall Space Cluster 2026–2030
Goonhilly Earth Station | The Lizard
tracking missions to the Moon, communicating with deep space
Spaceport Cornwall | Newquay
the first site in the country to host satellite launch attempts into orbit from home soil
National Drone Hub | Predannack
CAA certified regulatory environment to develop autonomous technology at pace
The Opportunity
Part of something bigger
Cornwall’s space sector doesn’t operate in isolation; it’s part of something bigger. Each project connects to something broader – an ecosystem where progress in one sector powers the next.
