Commercial access for UK/ESA student experiments on board the ISS

School students in the US have the ability to

commercially fly experiments on-board the International Space

Station (ISS) via programmes like the Nanoracks sponsored

Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP). Programs like

SSEP do allow international schools to participate but similar

programmes do not currently exist within the European Space

Agency (ESA). ESA does, however, support commercial access to

space via companies like Airbus and Kayser Italia. A key principle

of SSEP is that students propose to fly experiments that will work

within existing spaceflight hardware. This is similar to the idea of

using standardized CubeSat platforms in education and ESA’s

long-standing use of standardized Experiment Containers (ECs).

These ECs form the starting point for Airbus and Kayser Italia’s

commercial access programmes. In 2018 we were selected by the

UK Space Agency to develop and fly a UK national payload to the

ISS. This payload will conduct scientific experiments proposed by

ourselves, international partners, and schools in the UK. All

experiments will take place inside ECs that are refurbished, and

flight qualified in the UK. If we can successfully conduct student

experiments during this mission, we will have demonstrated the

possibility of conducting UK student experiments in space via a

UK company. This should pave the way for UK-based commercial

access to the ISS that could be used by schools much like the US

based SSEP.