The writer is chief executive and co-founder of Planet
When terrestrial politics has been frosty, nations have turned to space as a venue for co-operation — to cast differences aside in the name of science. The joint US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission at the height of the cold war involved extraordinary levels of collaboration between these adversaries and showed the powerful role space can play.
That’s why the announcement of a merger last month between French satellite operator, Eutelsat, and the newer British satellite operator, OneWeb, is important. It opens up the opportunity for London and Brussels to get relations back on track.
Before Brexit, the UK belonged to both the EU’s Galileo global navigation system and Europe’s Copernicus earth observation programme. It made perfect sense. The expense and global coverage of space systems means that it’s difficult for any one nation to go it alone. In the same way that Cern has brought together the best minds in nuclear…