Dstl and the UK Space Agency have launched the fourth “Space to Innovate” competition, with Delta Drop focusing on defence and security innovations.
Since launching ‘Space to Innovate: Alpha Drop’ in 2021, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and the UK Space Agency have awarded over £4.2 million in funding to 19 organisations.
Delivered in partnership with UK Defence Innovation (UKDI), this funding has helped find and develop novel technologies to give the UK an advantage over adversaries in the space domain.
The latest round of funding focuses on technologies that may not progress in the commercial sector, but could be critical for defence and government use:
- Challenge 1: Technologies to enhance future sensor to response capabilities, improving coverage and response times for Space Domain Awareness (SDA), Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and communications missions.
- Challenge 2: Novel technology approaches to self-protecting space based platforms.
- Challenge 3: Technologies to enable resilience against ground based electromagnetic threat.
You can read the full competition document here.
Key information
Up to £985,000 is available for projects lasting up to 18 months, targeting Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3 to 6.
There are two submission deadlines:
- Stage 1 submission deadline: 28 July 2026
- Stage 2 submission deadline: 25 August 2026
There are also online resources for applicants to find further resources- a launch webinar on Wednesday 8 July, which can be registered for here; and a series of one-to-one teleconference sessions avaialble after the webinar, with the opportunity to ask specific technical questions to the competition team in a closed forum.
Non-technical questions about the competition process should be sent to the UKDI Help Centre: [email protected].
