Space sector worth £18bn to UK economy
A conference is taking place in Belfast this week
Last updated 4th Jun 2025
Experts are gathering Belfast over the next two days (Wednesday and Thursday) to discuss the future of the UK space sector, which is worth £18 billion to the economy.
The event at the ICC in the city aims to bring together representatives from government, academia and industry.
At this year’s conference a UK-wide network for microgravity research is being launched.
This involves manufacturing new materials, drugs and even human organs in space for use on Earth.
The network will help unlock these opportunities for the UK.
Nafeesa Dajda, Chief of Missions at Satellite Applications Catapult which organised the event along with the UK Space Agency, explains:
"You have no gravity up there which means there's no constraints on how different materials are formed.
"If we can make and manufacture these materials in space and bring them back to earth we can use them to provide different kinds of medicines to patients, potentially cancer patients, things that don't need to be injected but can be taken as a pill and make different types of materials in space which can help with electronics here on earth as well."
The sector is also a large employer for Northern Ireland.
There are hopes to grow it in future.
Nafeesa tells us what it means to Belfast to host the conference in the city:
"The space sector is growing in the UK, here in Northern Ireland we have 500m people that are employed in the space sector.
"The space sector is worth about £18 billion to the UK economy and this conferenc is looking at how we take the cool experiments happening on the International Space Station and turn those experiments into reality," she said.
She added: "There's over 60 space companies here in Northern Ireland, they're looking for skilled people, for people that can come into the workforce help to develop ew satellites, take earth observation data and turn that into new kinds of services for the public.
"We're using earth observation data at the minute to look at how we can improve the water quality of Lough Neagh to look at the harmful algae blooms that are forming on there and then do something about it."