Space – Drone Wars UK

UK Military Drone and AI Programmes: Where are we?

01/09/202601/09/2026Chris Cole

Since the beginning of the summer we have had the release of the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP), the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey and the replacement of his successor (Dan Jarvis lest you forget) with the appointment of Wes Streeting and of course, the ousting of PM Keir Starmer for Andy Burnham. In addition there have been a number of military spending announcements related to UK military drone and AI programmes so its worth setting out where we are at the moment in this area.

New PM Andy Burnham viewing a British drone with Major General Duncan Capp, August 2026. Credit: SkyNews

Military spending increased, other budgets cut

Firstly, despite noisy complaints from the usual suspects that not enough is being spent on ‘defence’, the government has committed eye-watering amounts to increase funding for the military as well as for military equipment development programmes. The DIP outlined how the UK will spend £298bn over the next four years, with annual UK military spending set to rise to £80bn a year in 2029 – that’s up from £54bn in 2024, a 27% increase.

Included in this spending is

£5bn for military drones
Over £5bn for military AI systems
£1.8bn to a new Digital Targeting Web
£3.2bn for military space capabilities
£11bn for munitions and weapons.

This increase in military spending is, of course, at the cost of other budgets. In 2025, the government announced £6 billion of cuts to UK’s aid budget with the money to be spent instead on the development of “cutting-edge capabilities” for the military. Alongside the publication of the Defence Investment Plan, the government announced further cuts to all government departments plus deeper cuts to Energy and Transport budgets. According to analysis by Transition Security Project, cuts at the Energy department will total around £3.9bn, Transport will be cut by £2.4bn with the Department of Health by about £1 billion.

Most media coverage of these announcements though included a host of talking heads arguing that it simply wasn’t enough and that much more military spending was needed. As parliament returns for the autumn we are likely to see more lobbying in this vein.

Swindon: The New Home of Drone Warfare

Swindon has become the UK’s home of drone warfare with the establishment of the MoD’s new Uncrewed Systems Centre (USC) at its DroneTEX facility at Panattoni Park in the town. The term ‘DroneTEX’ come apparently for somebody’s neat idea to amalgamate ‘drone’, ‘technology’ and ‘testing’. It will be the focal point for the development and testing of UK military drones and technology in collaboration with industry. At 545,000sq ft, DroneTEX, we are told, is the size of more than 10 football pitches.

Then Defence Secretary, John Healey, visiting DroneTex in Swindon. Credit: Tekever

According to the DIP, the Uncrewed Systems Centre will be the MoD’s “centre of excellence for uncrewed systems and the digital exploitation of that capability, supporting the Digital Targeting Web.” Whether the MoD’s Defence Uncrewed Design Authority (DUxDA) [latest FoI on DUxDA here] will be relocated to Swindon is as yet unclear.

Alongside these new MoD facilities, a growing number of private companies involved in the development of military AI drones have established facilities in the town including Tekever, Stark, Munin and Neros.

New UK Land War Doctrine: Drones, Drone Drones

The DIP makes clear that Army commanders now see the development of drone technology as having a profound impact on how it conducts ground warfare, both in terms of needing to exploit the use of drones for ‘recce-strike’ but also in how it needs to defence personnel and equipment. According to the DIP,

“The British Army’s is transforming… founded on the Army’s new doctrine of fighting by ‘recce-strike’ at every level – from corps down to platoon – and underpinned by the widespread adoption of autonomous systems and AI.”

In other words, the Army intends to thoroughly integrate drones and AI capabilities into its fighting. As the DIP puts it, “it is a complete reimagination of British land warfare.”

A number of programmes to train and equip British soldiers to use small to medium size drones are being funded, including a £2bn contract with Omnia to train 60,000 soldiers annually. The UK has also funded Project NYX aimed at developing autonomous drones to accompany the army’s Apache helicopters and £400m to replace the army’s disasterous Watchkeeper drones with new Tekever AR5 drones. But significant funding is also being allocated to ASGARD.

Project ASGARD is a British Army communications and control system which uses AI to connect a variety of sensors with weapons such as artillery, tanks, rockets and soldiers on the ground to enable commanders to find targets and strike faster than ever before. The aim is to make the Army “ten times more lethal” than before. ASGARD is the army’s part of the MoD’s new Digital Targeting Web.

The Digital Targeting Web

While drones have had a huge impact on warfare, the rapid develop and integration of AI into warfare is likely to be profound. While in part this will come through the integration of AI into weapon systems themselves, AI is also being used to process information and data to rapidly produce potential targets and to help strike those targets far more rapidly. We have seen this in the Israeli use of systems such as ‘Lavender’, Habsora’ and Where’s Daddy?’ The UK is developing what it calls the Digital Targeting Web (DTW) in order to utilise AI for targeting and strikes.

Giving evidence to the Defence Select Committee, General Sir Richard Barrons, one of the authors of the Strategic Defence Review said in relation to the Digital Targeting Web

“I regret that we had to settle on the word “targeting”, which implies that it just does targeting. Actually, the digital kill web—a word I prefer—is the architecture of command and control now.”

He went on:

“Essentially, what the web does is to take in every form of thing or capability that senses the operating environment—whether it is satellite, aircraft, drone, mobile phone, ship, vehicle or database, it does not matter; everything that allows you to understand your operating environment—and networks that into a database and secure cloud managed by AI—without AI, you cannot manage it—supervised by clever people. That capability allows you to assemble an understanding of your operating environment to support decision making, including ranking targets and allocating them to weapons systems, whether they are kinetic, from any service, or non-kinetic, like a cyber-attack.

While the DIP committed £1.8bn in funding for the Digital Targeting web up until 2030, it also said it expected to spend £17bn on it and the wider MoD ‘digital backbone’ between 2030 and 2035.

Digital Warfighter Group and the Military Use of Agentic AI

The MoD says that work is underway to establish a Digital Warfighter Group with the aim of “deploying digital and conventional war fighters on operations side-by-side”. In part this is about “creating a new type of operator, whose education, training and equipment supports digital operations”.

However, alongside this, the plan is also to deploy Agentic AI. Unlike traditional generative AI (such as ChatGPT) that can only respond to single prompts, Agentic AI uses a variety of tools and programmes to independently plan and execute multi-step actions to achieve a broader goal. Increasing we have seen Agentic AIs go rogue in tests and it is extremely worrying that the UK is already planning to deploy these systems for warfighting.

Collaborative Combat Aircraft: A Drone By Any Other Name

While the UK has already funded some smaller Autonomous Collaborative Platforms such as StormShroud (ACP are drones designed to accompany crewed aircraft to undertake various tasks such as jamming or lethal attacks) the DIP, commits funding to develop a larger armed ‘Collaborative Combat Aircraft Programme’ for the RAF with initial funding of £300m. The DIP states that CCA “will expand sensor coverage, carry extra missiles, and push far ahead of the crewed air component, to enhance survivability and lethality.”

Defence Minister Luke Pollard announced in July that the new jet-powered CCA would be called StormFighter. Both BAE Systems and Boeing have already thrown their hats into the ring with systems they have already developed. The DIP makes clear that the UK aims to spend “at least £70bn in new capabilities for the air domain” between 2030 and 2035. Interestingly, the DIP also says that “our CCAs will exploit a sovereign, world-leading propulsion system.”

Maritime Drones to create a ‘Hybrid Navy’

The DIP aims to push the Navy towards developing large number of uncrewed systems, with at least £1.3bn aimed at creating ‘a hybrid fleet’ (crewed and uncrewed naval systems). The Hybrid fleet will

“ultimately comprised of uncrewed missile platforms (Type 91), uncrewed underwater sense platforms (Type 92), extra-large uncrewed underwater vessels (XLUUV) (Type 93), uncrewed radar platforms (Type 94) and a future class of Common Combat Vessels (CCV).”

Image released by Royal Navy depicting uncrewed navy vessel designs.

These systems will be connected by a ‘Maritime Fighting Web’ – the navy element of the Digital Targeting Web. Alongside these developments, £240m will fund Project Pantheon, the development of autonomous systems to start building a autonomous Carrier Air Wing, In addition, various programmes aimed at bringing AI into the anti-submarine warfare arena are also being funded.

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (about space warfare)

In the same way that the UK denies it is actively working to develop lethal autonomous weapons, the UK insists that it opposes military action in space. Yet at the very same time it is actively developing plans for what it calls ‘space control’, a euphemism for offensive military action in space. The DIP states that the MoD will “be more ambitious in delivering the space capabilities necessary to fight and win.”

The DIP allocated over £3bn to military space activities over the next four years alone, with plans to spend a further £9bn between 2030 and 2035.

Plans include

A UK space-based ‘sovereign’ operational Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capability
Working with the US and Australia on a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability. The UK element will be based at Cawdor Barracks in Pembrokeshire. This new network of ground-based space radars is aimed at surveillance of other states space assets.
Developing various classified capabilities to enhance UK Space Control.
A new centralised Air, Space and Missile Defence Operations Centre (IASMDOC)
Extending thee life of the SKYNET 5 military communications satellites until SKYNET 6 is operational.

Unfortunately, armed conflict in space can no longer be seen as unlikely or far-fetched but increasingly possible. Any such conflict will have severe consequences for all of us below as space-based systems play an essential role in critical civilian infrastructure and are indispensable to the provision of essential services

Alongside these key developments the UK is spending over £11bn on new munitions and weapons stockpiles; developing a ‘Deep Precision Strike’ missile; spending almost £500m on what used to be called lasers but are now called Direct Energy Weapons; an unknown amount on the development of a new Biological Warfare Laboratory at Porton Down to be named after Ernest Bevin; and £750m funding counter-drone systems for deployed and UK based forces.

Drone Wars will continue to scrutinise and enable critical public debate about all these developments.

See: Key UK drone development programmes

See: Key UK Military AI development programmes

Suspicious omissions: US and Chinese secret space drone missions spark questions and concerns

01/08/202412/08/2024Cora Morris

To what ends might the United States Department of Defence have developed an unmanned, highly-manoeuvrable ‘spaceplane’? Why have its lengthy missions – lasting as long as two and a half years – been so shrouded in secrecy? And what are China’s intentions for its rival vehicle? These questions and more underpin speculation around the dangers of an unfolding spaceplane race.

The US X-37b space drone, conceived by NASA and Boeing in the late 1990s, was taken up as a classified project of the US government’s ‘Space Force’ in 2004. At around nine metres long and four-and-a-half wide, the bus-sized vessel is launched by rocket but can land independently on conventional runways. Its significant cargo bay, however, rarely pictured open in any publicly-available images since its maiden flight in April of 2010, leaves uncertainty about the drone’s internal capacities, and its possible functions.

This secrecy has fuelled questions about the X-37b’s military capabilities – questions which have not been dampened by the minimal official communications issued about the X-37b’s purposes, despite the heavily publicised spectacle of its launches.

A common official line for early flights – offering that the vehicle functioned as a contained test site for the viability of new satellite materials – justified extended missions with a need to examine these materials’ resilience over time. That this testing could not take place in the established International Space Station (ISS), however, implied secrecy, and added to the questions that have accompanied each of the space drone’s launches. Among other omissions, commentators have remarked on the absence of requisite UN notification and thus proper transparency for satellites the X-37b has released in flight – an unusual divergence from international space norms with which the United States usually seeks to demonstrate public compliance.

But it is in the months since the X-37b’s most recent departure, in late December 2023, that attention to its purposes has come to a head. The use of the highly powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the plane’s launch – rather than the Falcon 9 rocket used for 2020’s launch – has prompted questions: why might its engineers need the plane to orbit at the altitudes this higher-powered rocket could propel it to? These queries remain unresolved by formal statements regarding its still ongoing flight, which poses extended experiments into the atmospheric viability of plant seeds as the mission’s innocuous purpose.

In the absence of trustworthy information, it is of little surprise that curious minds have sought clues to intentions for the X-37b. In February 2024, Tomi Simola – an amateur satellite tracker from Finland – spied the spacecraft in one of his regular sky captures after weeks of collaborative effort by fellow online tracking enthusiasts. Based on this, Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell remarked that the ‘unusual elliptical orbit’ of the plane appeared similar to that of US Space Force satellites used for detecting ballistic missiles in flight. McDowell speculates that the X-37b’s current mission could be about testing a powerful infrared ‘early-warning’ sensor used to detect such missiles – but stressed that this was only speculation. Indeed, without proper transparency, only such speculation is possible. Read more →

Online Webinar: ‘Scotland Says Keep Space for Peace’ Tues 19th September, 7pm

11/09/202321/09/2023Chris Cole

Over the past decade, both the US and UK governments have designated space as a key focus as military operations increasingly rely on space-based assets for command and control, surveillance, targeting, missile warning and secure communications with forces deployed overseas.

In 2019 the Ministry of Defence (MoD) declared that space should be seen as “a war fighting domain” and over the past two years we have seen the setting up of UK Space Command, the publication of a UK Defence Space Strategy outlining how the MoD will “protect the UK’s national interests in space” and the announcement of a portfolio of new military programmes to develop space-based military assets. Incredibly, both the US and UK are also exploring the use of nuclear propulsion for their space systems.

The UK is now in the process of developing a number of UK spaceports – including in Shetland, the Western Isles and Sutherland – from where we will see both commercial and military space launches. We are entering an era of military space expansion by the UK which will inevitably lead to environmental harm and risk of instability and conflict.

Join Scottish CND and Space Watch UK/Drone Wars to examine how new Scottish spaceports are at the heart of UK government plans to militarise space and what we can do to challenge it.

We will follow up this online event with an in-person protest outside Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 3rd

Speakers:

• Dr Jill Stuart is an academic based at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is an expert in the politics, ethics and law of outer space exploration and exploitation. She is a frequent presence in the global media on the issue and regularly gives lectures around the world.

• Dave Webb is former Chair of CND, Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and co-author of the new report ‘Heavens Above: Examining the UK’s Militarisation of Space.

• George Gunn grew up in the far north of Scotland and now lives in Thurso. He is a poet and has written over fifty productions for stage and radio and has produced several series for BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 4. He has a regular column ‘From the Province of the Cat’ in Bella Caledonia.

• Timothy Parker a recent graduate of the University of Reading, researched the development of UK spaceports and the implications of AI for the UK’s nuclear weapons programme as part of an internship for Drone Wars UK.

• Tor Justad is Chair of Highlands Against Nuclear Transport (HANT). He believes in the words of Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Chair:

• Lynn Jamieson is an academic and Chair of Scottish CND.

Tickets for the webinar are free and can be booked at the Eventbrite page here.

Taking off but falling short: Assessing the environmental impact of the UK’s spaceport ventures

06/07/202327/07/2023Timothy Parker

If you’ve been following UK aerospace news in any way, it’s likely you’ve come across the LaunchUK programme – the UK government funded scheme to turn Britain into a hub of modern commercial space activity. The reasons for this are plenty, but put most simply, the UK’s geography makes it an ideal candidate for orbital launches from Europe. It is at a relatively high altitude, allowing for easy access to low earth orbit, and it is surrounded by the ocean, reducing the danger of something going wrong above population centres.

The UK Space Agency has provided support to seven individual projects to set up spaceports – launch sites for satellites – some of which have seen more success than others. Last year, for example, Spaceport Cornwall saw its first (and only) attempted launch, carried out by now-bankrupt Virgin Orbit. Other projects are underway (to varying degrees) to launch small satellites from sites in Shetland, the Outer Hebrides, Sutherland, Argyll, Ayrshire and Snowdonia.

At the same time as this investment in space infrastructure, the UK is also committed to expanding its military presence in space. Over the past two years, for example, we have seen the setting up of UK Space Command, the publication of a Defence Space Strategy and the announcement of several new military development programmes in this area. Indeed, just as a small rocket could be used to launch weather satellites, so too could it be used to launch military surveillance equipment into orbit – for example, the BAE-manufactured Azalea satellite cluster, which is planned to enter operations in 2024.

The aim of this blog post however, is not to look back at the history of the UK’s spaceport programme. Rather, it is to evaluate the situation as it stands at the moment, and to suggest how things might be developing in the coming months. Some of the projects mentioned above are relatively easy to assess. Spaceport Snowdonia, for example, appears to have stalled entirely, and the projects at Prestwick Airport and Machrihanish (Ayrshire and Argyll) are only in their very early stages. Planning for Prestwick Spaceport is in its pre-application phase, and Spaceport Machrihanish has submitted no formal applications as yet, despite having received over £700,000 in UK government funding.

The real developments are happening further north. SaxaVord Spaceport, located at the Lamba Ness peninsula on the remote island of Unst in northern Shetland, is expected to be the next spaceport to be able to carry out launches, and following the failure of Virgin Orbit, is now scheduled to be the site of the first satellite launch from the UK. It is also planned to be the first new spaceport in Europe able to conduct vertically launched orbital flights.

Environmental impact ignored

As it stands, construction is mostly completed, with the site now consisting of three launch pads, with the concrete and steel now laid out and the launch stool erected for the first. Deals have been signed with private companies, most notably with Rocket Factory Augsburg, to go ahead with launches later this year, and with HyImpulse, which has now conducted seven engine tests on the site. SaxaVord CEO Frank Strang has suggested that the final hurdle – gaining a license from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) – may be cleared as soon as August 2023, after which orbital flights from Shetland may well become a reality by the end of 2023.

Herma Ness, the northernmost headland of Unst, is a National Nature Reserve. The creation of SaxaVord Spaceport will have significant impact.

Yet this is not without issue. There are several factors that appear to have been neglected, if not ignored in their entirety. The first, and perhaps the most obvious problem, is the matter of environmental impact. SaxaVord’s site has been constructed a mere three kilometres from Hermaness National Nature Reserve – one of the UK’s largest seabird colonies, with over 100,000 breeding. By SaxaVord’s own admission in a consultation response for the CAA, launches will cause significant noise levels of around 85 decibels in parts of the protected area, which is equivalent to the noise of traffic on a busy road – and, according to the Environmental Impact Assessment created for the project, can be expected to have implications for wildlife. Read more →

Why we oppose today’s planned UK space launch

09/01/202320/01/2023Chris Cole

Protestors gathered at Newquay ‘Spaceport’ in October 2022 to oppose UK space launch

Tonight’s planned space launch from Newquay ‘spaceport’ is the latest step in a new era of expansion into space by the military with the UK wholeheartedly joining a space arms race which will inevitably lead to greater risk of instability and conflict.

Space is rapidly becoming a key domain for military operations as modern wars rely heavily on space-based assets for command and control, surveillance, intelligence gathering, missile warning and supporting forces deployed overseas. Satellites also enable communications links for military and security forces, including communications needed to remotely fly armed drones.

Over the past two years we have seen the setting up of UK Space Command, the publication of a Defence Space Strategy outlining how the MoD will “protect the UK’s national interests in space” and the announcement of a portfolio of new military programmes to develop space assets and infrastructure. MoD ministers have openly stated that they now determine space to be a war fighting domain.

As well as today’s planned launch – which will see at least two pairs of military satellites placed in space – ground has been broken on a new spaceport in th e Shetland Isles.

Protestors at Newquay Airport, October 2022. Credit: Phil Green/Peter Burt

Challenging the environmental impact of the UK’s military expansion into space

08/12/202209/01/2023Peter Burt and Dave Webb

In February, Shetland Islands Council granted planning permission for the proposed SaxaVord Spaceport, located on the Lamba Ness Peninsula in the northeast of the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands. Other Scottish spaceports have also been proposed for Sutherland in the Highlands and at a site in the Western Isles.

The proposed developments on Unst are relatively modest in terms of their footprint on the ground, comprising of a gatehouse, three launch pads, a satellite tracking station, two hangar buildings, an administration building, pyrotechnic store and hazardous materials store – and a wildlife hide – on a site of about 198 acres (80 hectares). But this masks a much larger environmental impact resulting from the space launch activities which are planned at the site.

Lamba Ness peninsula on Unst, before work on Spaceport began.

To carry out spaceflight activity in the UK spaceport and launch operators must be licensed by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Shetland Space Centre Limited has applied for such a licence to operate a vertical spaceport from Unst.

Construction work has begun even though consultation on environmental impact is still ongoing.

As part of their licence application, spaceport and launch operators are required to submit an Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE). The purpose of the AEE is to ensure applicants have adequately considered any potential environmental effects of their intended activities and, if necessary have taken steps to avoid, mitigate or offset the risks and their potential effects. The AEE for the Saxavord Spaceport has been prepared and submitted on behalf of the operators by ITPEnergised (an international consultancy), whose job is to present the development in the best possible light – highlighting the benefits and playing down the impacts in order to ensure that a license is issued for the spaceport. It should be noted that even as the public consultation on the Assessment of Environmental Effects was ongoing, work had begun on construction of the spaceport. Read more →