The University of Edinburgh is a specialist in space and communications.
Our researchers work in an extraordinary range of space-related activities: engineers are exploring the management of fire risk in space and developing rocket fuel pods; chemists are developing clean-burn rocket fuels; and astronomers are tracking the skies for space debris. We have teams developing deep-space probes, and others writing literature about space. Our geoscientists are training the next generation within SENSE, the UK's Centre for Doctoral Training in Earth Observation. Our students are even developing their own satellite missions.
Edinburgh aims to be the Space Data Capital of Europe, as a vibrant centre for world-class talent, data science and space and satellite entrepreneurship. We are known for our role driving the Scottish space sector through generating growth in Edinburgh as well as connecting the wider Scottish space community to propel the Scottish space sector ahead.
The University's School of GeoSciences is exceptionally well-equipped with the latest technologies to enable researchers to stay at the forefront of their fields. The School houses an impressive range of advanced geoscience facilities and services and is involved with collaborative centres of research excellence. For example, a wide range of high-tech facilities for the analysis of rocks, minerals and fluids, for isotope analysis and measurement of the physical properties of rocks. There are excellent facilities and expertise for scientific computing in geographic information systems, meteorological models and geophysics.
The UK Centre for Astrobiology’s mission is to discover how habitable worlds form in the universe, how life emerges, proliferates and leaves traces on these worlds, and how biological systems could support sustainable space exploration. Expertise includes biology at the limits and habitability; deep time: ancient biosignatures and the intersection between astrobiology and palaeontology; microbiology in space; subsurface astrobiology; the use of analogue environments to study the robotic and human exploration of space in a variety of extreme environments; and exoplanets and their habitability.
Facilities include high- and low-pressure flow-through chamber; aerobic/anaerobic and other microbiology wet lab facilities; microscopic cold environments simulation; clinostat microgravity simulation; and BISAL – the world's first deep subsurface astrobiology laboratory at 1km depth.
The UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) is a national centre of excellence for the development of scientific instrumentation and facilities for ground- and space-based astronomy.
Based at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, and operated by STFC it has a world-class reputation for delivering innovative and capable cameras, spectrometers and even turnkey telescope systems.
Image: James Webb Space Telescope image of NGC 346, a massive star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido De Marchi (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA)
Data Slipstream, the new data infrastructure at the University of Edinburgh, leverages our high-performance computing (HPC) expertise and resources, to enable data fusion using multiple sensors operating at differing wavelengths, spatial and temporal resolutions. The Airborne GeoSciences facility, is used extensively to calibrate satellite data to support more advanced processing. We have successfully demonstrated the value of additional UAV data to supplement satellite data.
Contact: Stuart.Simmons@ed.ac.uk, Head of Business Development & Innovation, School of GeoSciences.
The Edinburgh Space Hub brings together experts from academia and industry to drive advancements in space technology. Based at the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre, a key hub of the Data-Driven Innovation initiative, the Space Hub focuses on areas such as robotics, AI for space, climate change, sustainability, and space law.
The University of Edinburgh provides research-driven solutions to transform and future-proof organisations on their digital transformation journey. Key areas of expertise include:
Communications Systems: Networks, Next Generation Wireless and Optical Comms.
Machine Learning: Bayesian Inference, Deep Learning and Data Analytics.
Signal and Image Processing: Tomography and Computational Imaging.
The Higgs Centre for Innovation brings together world-class research in astronomy and particle physics and the instrumentation expertise that underpins it, with business incubation facilities and laboratories suitable for commercial use. The Science and Technology Facilities Council and the University have a long history of developing and commercialising revolutionary science and technology.
The Green Toolkit for Space (GTxS) is an online information platform to assist the UK Space Sector to easily access regulatory guidance on global standards and laws concerning space sustainability. The platform also supplies information on environmental risks and sustainable choices, which would serve as a convenient tool for people developing their space-faring business. The GTxS calculation module uses space traffic models to inform on risks attached to specific satellite design and orbit selection.
Contact: Dr Anna.Kimmel@ei.ed.ac.uk, Business Development Executive, School of Physics and Astronomy.
The Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) carries out multi-wavelength sky mapping projects, providing services, tools, and databases to the international astronomy community and the public. In recent years WFAU has processed, housed and served databases from the UKIDSS and VISTA surveys, bringing in a new era of digital infra-red astronomy, as well as involvement in the Gaia sky survey, which is transforming positional astronomy. Currently, it is preparing to host data from the new Euclid space mission and the upcoming Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). As well as the data itself, and a query interface, it provides tools such as the Lasair Event Broker which provides a real-time stream of transient events in the ever-changing sky.
Image credit: Rafael Schmall / NOIRLab under CC
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Soft Systems Group push the boundaries of robotics (including modular and swarm robotics systems), space technology and biomedical engineering. A growing range of specialisms includes bioinspired engineering, sensors, microfluidics, micro/nanofabrication, wearable technology, diagnostics, bioelectronics, and metamaterials.
Their systems have applications for space exploration and planetary sampling on the moon, Mars and beyond. To achieve this, the group explores the intersections between electronics and robotic systems, biology, chemistry, physics and fluidic systems. Their bioinspired soft robots can adapt and conform to their surroundings making planetary exploration a reality.
The Space Bridges programme, funded by the UK Space Agency, offers short courses to upskill individuals for the space industry, targeting new school leavers, experienced professionals, career returnees, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Utilising the University of Edinburgh's expertise in space data, the courses are delivered online with in-person workshops and networking opportunities. These industry-co-created courses aim to enhance skills for those entering or advancing in the space sector. Additionally, finance sector professionals can learn to apply space data in their business. This initiative is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Fife College.
The YT-package was born out of a need to analyse large and complex spatial data from astrophysical simulations of galaxies. Astrophysical simulation data sets cover a volume with thousands of overlapping three-dimensional patches at multiple spatial resolutions. The YT package allows researchers to ask scientific questions about their data without needing to think about the underlying format. With YT, users can define the geometry of a region of interest as a simple (circles, rectangles, spheres, cylinders) or complex (linear combinations of simple shapes, 2D/3D contours, arbitrary polygons). Data contained within are then returned to the user as simple arrays. The YT package created a common language for analysis in astrophysics, providing the same intuitive access to more than two dozen data formats in the field.
With the YT_GeoRaster package, we extend these capabilities to geo-referenced satellite data in common image formats like GeoTIFF and JPEG2000. The package enables simultaneous work with data from multiple satellites, within arbitrary regions of interest, and have data returned in a uniform resolution. The YT and YT_GeoRaster packages provide a foundation on which to build sophisticated satellite data fusion analysis.
Contact: Dr Anna.Kimmel@ei.ed.ac.uk, Business Development Executive, School of Physics and Astronomy.
Dr Zakary Campbell-Lochrie, and colleagues at the Edinburgh Fire Research Centre, employ a variety of experimental methods at both the laboratory and field scale, to evaluate and develop improved fire behaviour models. Our work, conducted in collaboration with key stakeholders (e.g. US Forest Service, National Institute of Standards & Technology, and various fire agencies) aims to support the long-term development of technological tools and modelling capabilities that support the wildfire response and active fire management efforts of land managers and fire agencies globally. Wildfire behaviour models vary in complexity from very simple, empirically-based models to the most complex detailed physics-based models (which incorporate multi-phase computational fluid dynamics models and explicitly incorporate the combustion chemistry). However, regardless of the particular model's complexity, a major challenge in wildfire behaviour prediction is determining how to accurately describe and incorporate key aspects of the vegetation properties (e.g. structure, moisture, chemical composition) within the model framework.
The structure and porous nature of natural vegetation have a major influence on the fire behaviour and combustion rate, and therefore these research efforts focus largely on developing and applying improved instrumentation and approaches to quantifying and characterising vegetation structure across multiple scales (e.g. Virtual Reality, LiDAR), to allow improved fuel models to be defined for use as inputs to fire behaviour models. With the support and involvement of appropriate space sector partners, there is also significant potential to explore the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar and other key satellite data, as part of these continued efforts to produce improved planning and decision support tools for land managers, fire agencies and key stakeholders.
Contact: Lorna.Jack@ei.ed.ac.uk, Business Development Executive, College of Science and Engineering.
