Europe is pouring billions into space. Can Glasgow's satellite industry keep up?

Other companies followed, including Craft Prospect and Alba Orbital. Expertise grew and a new space cluster began to form. American satellite company Spire chose Glasgow for its European base in 2015. Smaller businesses developed, while established engineering and technology firms became part of the supply chain."Companies started moving to Glasgow because they could see that it was possible to do it here, and there was an ecosystem that was starting to grow," says Andrew Strain, chief technology officer at AAC Clyde Space - the company formed after Clyde Space was acquired by Swedish firm AAC Microtec, although Glasgow remains the group's main satellite manufacturing site.Soon Glasgow was host to an "entire small satellite value chain", from components and satellite manufacturing, through to launch, spaceports and ground stations, according to Daniel Smith, founder of space marketing firm AstroAgency and the Scottish Government's trade and investment envoy for space.There are wider benefits too. According to a review commissioned by Space Scotland, space manufacturing alone accounted for more than 1,000 Scottish jobs in 2022-23. The wider industry generated £202m for the Scottish economy.And as the industry grew, so did the pool of knowledge. There are now more than 100 people working across space-related activity at the University of Strathclyde, with the subject now one of the institution's strategic priorities, according to Prof Malcolm Macdonald, its chair of applied space technology. The university works directly with commercial space companies on research and tech development.Macdonald recalls that when he graduated, there was basically no local space industry for him to join. Now, "when our graduates leave the university, they will go and work in the local space sector because it is now here in Glasgow for them", he says.But what's significant, Macdonald says, is that Glasgow's satellite industry wasn't something the government set out to establish. Instead, the process was "largely organic", says Smith.