Satellite Architect - Save the day with space tech!

To exemplify how data from satellites can provide valuable insight into challenges here on Earth, increasing the scientific awareness of key stage three students, teachers, and their families. Through providing an opportunity to find creative and innovative solutions to real life problems, this project will give examples of how science and business, industry and academia can work together to innovate for a better world, powered by satellites.

The Spark Award will provide the funding to develop a standalone game which allows participants to experience the role of a satellite architect, in a reusable and entertaining manner, to directly engage students into undertaking STEM careers, in an inclusive manner. We also intend to release the game as a PDF 'print and play' version, to ensure it is accessible to audiences in digital poverty and promoting group usage and team working.

The Space Skills Alliance Census schooling figures show that people from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds appear to be under-represented in the space sector and this under-representation is regionally invariant. These data suggest that people who attended state non-selective schools are under-represented by nearly 25% compared to the general UK population. According to the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), 10 of Oxford's 83 super output areas (SOAs) are among the 20% most deprived areas in England. These areas, which are in the Leys, Rose Hill, Littlemore, Barton and areas of the city, experience multiple levels of deprivation - low skills, low incomes, and relatively high levels of crime. As Satellite Applications Catapult is in Oxfordshire, we aim to target key stage three (KS3) school students, their teachers, and their families in these locations to support their STEM development and help overcome their under-representation in the space sector. As the resource will be digital or printable and openly accessible, we aim to encourage science discussions within the families, advancing the science capital of family members who might not otherwise have chosen to engage with STEM subjects. In addition, using our network, we aim to increase the reach of the resource beyond the local Oxfordshire region, through to other areas of the UK with high IMDs such as: the West Midlands, North East England, North West England, and Yorkshire.

We aim to increase awareness of the space industry's ability and application to solve pressing global issues. In particular, we aim to improve understanding around climate challenges and ways they can be tackled using satellite data, which is closely related to the Satellite Applications Catapult's net zero and COP 26 initiatives. In addition, because of the Catapult's unique position in empowering the commercialisation of space innovation, the resource is also uniquely positioned to demonstrate how STEM and business can be combined.

After playing the game, the audience should come away with:
- An understanding of 3 major types of satellites and their real-world applications.
- An understanding of which subjects and skills are relevant to space careers
- A feeling of value and accomplishment for solving a relevant environmental crisis.
- A feeling of inspiration and aspiration to pursue a STEM and/or space sector career.
- An ability to effectively work as part of a team (where the pupils play as part of a team; they can also play solo).
These outcomes will be achievable regardless of whether the resource is used in-person or online.

In addition, the game will build on applicable KS3 topics:
- Introduction to space science and satellite applications.
- Principles of gravity/orbital physics that dictate satellite coverage and revisit rate.
- Principles of light wave physics that enables imaging in the visible light spectrum and beyond.
- An understanding of radio wave communication through ground segment capabilities (this also highlights STFC's ground segment capabilities).

Part of the dissemination will occur in schools, where we will facilitate the delivery. Through continued contact with the schools involved, we will distribute the resource to more students year-on-year.

The game will be fully integrated into the Catapult's marketing ecosystem: website, social media, digital networks.

We have also recently launched in May 2021 a new online platform for the Space community, the Space Enterprise Community (SEC). Our ultimate ambition is to see the SEC become the go-to resource for space sector professionals. The SEC has been designed to help address the challenge of a dynamic sector made up of an extensive and disparate network of groups, organisations, and individuals by connecting commercial, academic, research and public sector stakeholders from each region with one another. Providing a supportive, collaborative, and user-friendly platform for all parties.

The SEC will help highlight potential synergies and partnerships, stimulating ideas and conversations and providing a gateway to collated resources, events, links, and contacts that might otherwise be difficult to identify. There is already a STEM and Resource group set up on the platform for individuals from across the UK to share ideas, resources, and best practice. We will include this resource to this platform.

The SEN's users make up the Catapult's Regional Network, managed by the Regional Growth Team. Alongside the Local Growth Team at the UK Space Agency (UKSA), we have a joint ambition to grow space across the UK and have a truly connected UK Space Ecosystem. Our existing joint programme of Regional Centres of Excellence has recently expanded to include new space clusters. The locations we are connected with include the following:
- Northern Ireland
- Scotland
- Wales
- North West England
- Yorkshire
- North East England
- West Midlands
- West of England
- South Coast
- South West

These are alongside our activities in Harwell, Westcott, and Leicester. STEM and Skills are included in the strategies of growing the space sector in the above regions. We are confident we can leverage this network to raise awareness and disseminate.

The Satellite Applications Catapult is one of a network of nine UK technology and innovation companies which aim to drive economic growth through the commercialisation of research. There is a specific group on skills and workforce and this resource will be fed into the STEM activities in this network.

We regularly engage with the Public Engagement Public team at STFC and support them in delivering aspects of their public engagement strategy. To date, our involvement has been a mixture of individual Catapult activities and STFC public engagement deliverables. This resource will allow us to bolster our independent STEM offerings. Furthermore, we are in discussions with ESERO-UK, and this resource may be part of their library of resources which teachers use on a regular basis during delivery of curriculum. Creating an online version of the game affords us to link to other online resources easily.