The British National Space Centre (BNSC) was a body of Her Majesty's Government, organised in 1985, that coordinated civil space activities for the UK. It was replaced on 1 April 2010 by the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA)
BNSC operated as a voluntary partnership of ten British government departments and agencies and research councils. The civil portion of the British space programme focused on space science, Earth observation, satellite telecommunications, and global navigation (for example GPS and Galileo). The latest version of the UK civil space strategy which defined the goals of BNSC was published in February 2008.
Notably the BNSC had a policy against human spaceflight,[5] and did not contribute to the International Space Station.
The BNSC was the third largest financial contributor to the General Budget of the European Space Agency, contributing 17.4%,[11] to its Science Programme and to its robotic exploration initiative the Aurora programme.
The BNSC partnership co-funded a private sector project led by Avanti Communications to build a satellite called HYLAS to provide broadband communications to rural and remote users. Current projects in the field of space science include LISA Pathfinder, for which UK industry is the prime contractor and UK universities are building key payload elements
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