The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Innovation Incoming in Space (31 March 2025, Prince Philip House) offered an insightful and fact-rich exploration of the technologies shaping the future of the space economy. With topics ranging from space-based solar power and crystallisation in orbit to modular infrastructure and lunar habitation, the panel discussed how innovation is driving space from the experimental to the operational. Set against the backdrop of geopolitical shifts and commercial competition, the event underscored the UK’s strategic opportunity to lead in agile engineering, cyber resilience, and space-enabled industrial capability. A dawning theme throughout the evening was the growing realisation that space is becoming commercial, contested, and critically dependent on cyber resilience.

Contents

Overview

Last night I attended the Royal Academy of Engineering’s event “Innovation Incoming in Space” at Prince Philip House, London. It was a lively, insightful evening, chaired by Lara Lewington, and featured a standout panel including Sam Adlen (Space Solar), Anita Bernie (MDA Space UK), Dr Katie King (BioOrbit), and Craig Clark (University of Strathclyde).

I attended the event alongside my fellow Founder Sevgi Aksoy. We had an extended conversation with Lanval O’Garro Jr., Founder and CEO of Neptune NewSpace, discussing the challenges facing early-stage space startups, including navigating RAEng fellowship funding and the difficulty of securing follow-on investment in the UK. It was inspiring to hear Lanval’s perspective; he had even travelled from the UK Space Centre in Leicester to attend, which underscored the draw of the evening. Just after the talk, while waiting to thank Craig Clark and the panel, I had a warm conversation with Craig’s wife, mostly about parenting and children. It was a welcome personal moment in an otherwise professionally charged evening.

In addition, I spoke with Paul Trowsdale (a Programme Lead at the Cabinet Office) about Gov Assure and his work within the Government Security Function and Government Security Group, and Sevgi spoke with Tariq York (a Policy Adviser at the Cabinet Office) about the challenges involved in shaping effective early-stage funding policy. A particularly pleasant exchange with Liz Partridge from RAEng gave me insight into her work in digital communications and marketing strategy and she promised to connect me up with the membership team. Sevgi and I were interviewed separately by the RAEng communications team about our thoughts on the event and the relevance of the Academy’s work.

My interest in the evening was sparked by several intersecting themes: the acceleration of the space economy (particularly via SpaceX and Falcon Heavy), the growing crossover between cyber and space (a key concern for Cyber Tzar customers in defence and aerospace), the resurgence of the defence sector amid geopolitical tensions, and the evolving nature of supply chain risk in a post-AI world.

Innovation Incoming in Space Video

Key Themes and Takeaways

The key themes discussed and the takeaways from them ranged from items specific to the panelist’s organisations to a much wider discussion of space economy topics.

1. Solar Power from Space

Sam Adlen spoke about Space Solar‘s vision of building large solar arrays in orbit that can beam energy back to Earth using High Frequency Radio Waves (HFRW). Remarkably, this model has half the carbon footprint of terrestrial solar, marking a serious game-changer in renewable energy.

2. Standardisation, Modularity & Commodification

The panel emphasised how future space infrastructure will rely heavily on modular, reconfigurable designs. Common components and commodity hardware are enabling lower-cost, faster-deployable missions. It echoes IT trends from a decade ago, and makes me wonder why this isn’t already standard practice in aerospace.

Katie King and others were enthusiastic about applying Agile and iterative development cycles to space projects, drawing a direct line from modern IT practices to current innovations in orbital engineering.

3. Robotics and In-Orbit Infrastructure

Alongside modular hardware, the role of robotics is quietly transforming space infrastructure. Sam Adlen referenced crawler-style robots designed to self-assemble large structures in orbit. Drawing inspiration from warehouse automation, these systems are unlocking kilometre-scale construction in space, not with human astronauts but with lightweight, intelligent machinery. Spacecraft are no longer just launched; they will increasingly be built, extended, and adapted in orbit.

4. Crystallisation, Pharma, and Manufacturing in Orbit

Crystallisation in space yields higher uniformity and better quality. There’s huge potential for pharmaceutical R&D and scalable manufacturing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), but the panel admitted it’s not yet cost-effective. Economies of scale, driven in part by reusable launch vehicles like Falcon Heavy, could soon change that.

In addition to BioOrbit’s cancer drug work, companies such as Space Forge are developing microgravity-manufactured semiconductors. Space, it turns out, is a highly efficient environment for producing perfectly formed materials at scale. The combination of vacuum, low gravity, and precise automation may usher in a new industrial revolution, one where entire manufacturing processes occur beyond Earth’s surface.

5. Security, Supply Chains, and Cyber in Orbit

I asked the panel:

“As we build more in space using shared tech, how are we managing cyber risks in the supply chain, especially with companies from all over the world involved?”

Craig Clark didn’t hold back. He acknowledged that cybersecurity in the space supply chain is a mess, that not enough is being done, that it’s urgently needed, and, notably, that a satellite had recently been hacked. I’d discussed this exact incident with Sevgi Aksoy on the way to the event, so it was striking to hear it referenced directly.

Craig described space as a “military domain”, where global competition, commodification, and a lack of regulation are converging to create serious vulnerabilities. As more off-the-shelf and internationally sourced components go into orbit, the potential for compromise, and for cascading consequences, grows rapidly. Cyber can’t be an afterthought. It must be designed in from the start.

6. Clustered Economies and Exchange in Orbit

Sam Adlen proposed a compelling shift in how we use orbital space. Rather than scattering satellites across vast distances, the future lies in clustering assets together. These space-based “economic clusters” would enable real-time data exchange, resource sharing, and collaborative infrastructure, much like cities or industrial parks do on Earth. By concentrating activity, we accelerate innovation and reduce debris, making orbital environments more productive and sustainable.

7. Defence Industry & Coopetition

There was acknowledgment that the defence sector is pouring investment into space technology. Craig warned about SpaceX’s growing dominance and made the case for a stronger UK-based capability. He encouraged startups to seize the opportunities in front of them and emphasised the urgency of building resilience, not just technology. It reminded me of a term I first heard from John Gage during my time at Sun Microsystems: “coopetition”, the idea of collaborating even while competing.

8. Space Habitation, Lunar Bases, and Roots in Zero G

Anita Bernie spoke compellingly about lunar habitation and semi-permanent bases as a stepping stone for human settlement in space. I particularly liked her point that “space is a team sport.” Still, I couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle when she said “Boots on the Moon”, my first thought was a pharmacy trip. The panel discussed how plants behave differently in space due to the lack of gravity, sparking an almost philosophical question: “Which way is up for roots?”

The discussion also touched on Mars colonisation. While some panellists saw Mars as the natural next step, others raised doubts about survivability, infrastructure, and psychological endurance. Craig Clark was blunt in his assessment, describing Mars as “inhospitable” and suggesting psychology, not engineering, may be the most important skill for Martian settlers. Yet even amidst scepticism, the idea of Mars as a symbolic frontier endured.

9. People, Reinvention, and the Law of Accelerating Returns

Sam Adlen suggested that in this evolving economy, people may need to reinvent themselves every five years. That struck a chord with Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns and reminded me of Buckminster Fuller’s concept of ephemeralization.

Craig echoed this when referencing Moore’s Law, but I’d argue that Moore’s Law is simply an expression of Kurzweil’s deeper insight, that it is patents that are growing exponentially year on year, not simply transistors and continued miniaturisation.

Audience Priorities: What the Questions Revealed

During the Q&A, the audience submitted a range of insightful questions via Slido, offering a window into the wider concerns shaping public and professional interest in space innovation. Several macro-level themes emerged.

1. Cybersecurity and Supply Chain Risk

There is a clear concern over the lack of governance, accountability, and resilience mechanisms for cybersecurity in space, especially as reliance on shared and commercial components grows.

• “As we build more in space using shared tech, how are we managing cyber risks in the supply chain, especially with companies from all over the world involved?”
• “As more satellites and systems go up, who’s actually responsible for security in space? Is anyone thinking about what a cyberattack on orbiting infrastructure could trigger?”
• “What stops a hacked or broken satellite from becoming dangerous space junk? Are we building in protection against that?”

2. Agile Development and Technical Debt

Attendees are wary that Agile may speed delivery but introduce long-term fragility if not managed carefully, drawing parallels with known software engineering challenges.

• “If we’re using fast, Agile methods to build space systems, how do we avoid the same tech debt and weak spots we see in IT on Earth?”

3. Cost Reduction and Innovation Unlock

The drop in launch and payload costs (thanks to platforms like Falcon Heavy) is seen as opening up new commercial frontiers, but the audience wanted specifics.

• “What other interesting businesses/technologies get unlocked with this step change in cost to orbit?”

4. Data Infrastructure and AI

Curiosity about the next evolution of data-driven space infrastructure, especially AI processing in orbit and decentralised computation.

• “How might we start to see things like AI, edge computing and data centres develop further in space?”

5. Space Colonisation and Lunar Infrastructure

The audience was also thinking long-term, moon-orbiting satellites, Martian habitation, and the physical infrastructure to support space-based life.

• “Will there start to be satellites orbiting the moon?”
• “What are the panelists’ thoughts about establishing a human colony on Mars?”

Final Thoughts

The evening reminded me how rapidly things are changing and how cyber, defence, and space are converging. If we’re not factoring in cybersecurity from the earliest designs, we risk building vulnerabilities into the very scaffolding of future infrastructure.

Space is becoming commercial, contested, and critically dependent on cyber resilience. The space economy is no longer futuristic. It’s commercial, contested, and critically important. That makes it all the more urgent for people like us in cyber, risk, and supply chain management to get involved.

As someone working at the intersection of cybersecurity, supply chain risk, and critical infrastructure, I found the panel’s reflections uncannily relevant. The convergence of space, data, and cyber resilience is not a distant possibility. It is here, now. For Cyber Tzar and the organisations we support, this shift demands proactive planning, not reactive governance. If we do not embed cybersecurity into space-enabled systems from the start, we risk repeating the mistakes of past terrestrial networks, at exponentially higher stakes.

You can find out more about the event at https://raeng.org.uk/events/2025/march/innovation-incoming-in-space