// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Europe is pouring billions into space. Can Glasgow's satellite industry keep up?
Europe is pouring billions into space. Can Glasgow's satellite industry keep up?
In 2005, a young space engineer called Craig Clark moved back to his home city of Glasgow. He'd graduated from university just over a decade before, but the only jobs he could find were south of the border. Now Craig wanted to start a company of his own. He called it Clyde Space.
I went to school not far from the River Clyde, where the city's shipbuilding heritage was forged, and knew Glasgow had once been an industrial powerhouse. When I was a child, "Clyde-built" really meant something: craftsmanship and engineering excellence. There was a saying that I grew up with: "The Clyde made Glasgow and Glasgow made the Clyde."
What I hadn't realised until recently was that, in a different guise, that tradition is still alive. Two decades later, Glasgow is a European leader in building small satellites.
Many of those built here are known as CubeSats. Their basic building block measures just 10cm by 10cm by 10cm - think of something about the size of a Rubik's Cube. They are much smaller, cheaper and quicker to develop than the huge contraptions that you might picture when you think of satellites.
CubeSats - like this one, pictured in the offices of Spire Global in Glasgow - can be used for anything from weather forecasting to global positioning
But crucially, they are modular and can be stacked together, then packed with cameras, sensors, communications equipment or other technology depending on their purpose.
And their size belies their significance. The data collected by satellites of all kinds is increasingly woven into everyday life. It helps us communicate and navigate, track ships and transport goods, monitor forests and crops, manage energy networks and understand changes to our climate.
For governments, that information can help inform decisions and respond to emergencies. As satellites have become more capable, space has become increasingly important.
More than two decades after the first satellite company was established there, the Scottish government says more small satellites are built in Glasgow than anywhere else in Europe.