I remember watching the Apollo Moon landing on the television when I was 17. I was glued to the screen and watched until the small hours as history was made. It seemed inconceivable that men had reached the Moon. Even now, I think that the space industry is magical and I find it one of the most technically challenging and rewarding industries to work in.
The space industry, 50 years on, has seen an incredible change in technology and manufacturing, which shows no sign of slowing down. The industry currently consists of satellite manufacturing, support ground equipment manufacturing and the launch industry.
In 2005 there were 967 satellites reported to be orbiting Earth, totalling a capital spend of US$230bn (€168bn). Today, the global industry is set to be worth $400bn (€292bn). Despite the recession since 2007, the space industry in the UK has grown by 10% year on year with a turnover of £7.5bn (€8.6bn).
In March this year, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the UK government was putting £10m into a new £100m fund to support the development of spacecraft technology. This fund has been matched by the space industry leaders, Astrium and Logica.
The investment in the space industry has advanced the development of space technology. The manufacturing facilities to build and house these technologies have also evolved and improved, meaning a change in the manufacturing guidelines. This has led to many cleanroom facilities being upgraded to meet these new guidelines.
Our client Astrium has recently been faced by this challenge at its Stevenage site, where it has a rolling programme to update facilities.
The main advantage to upgrading cleanroom facilities is the use of low carbon technologies. This can provide a significant saving when comparing long-term running costs. However, when you have an existing cleanroom, you do have to consider the cost of stopping production in order to upgrade.
Clients that require new cleanrooms would have seen a big change in design and build styles in the past five years. The use of low-energy technologies means that the cleanroom can be built more quickly, more cost-effectively and with lower running costs. Yet it is has been my experience of late that the cleanroom industry does not consider the future when designing a cleanroom. Low capex fittings and technologies can often cost the client up to 30–40% more to run, which in these frugal times does not make commercial sense.
By utilising LEDs, new lighting gives the room natural daylight and we have found these to be most successful in optically demanding environments.
There has also been an expansion in the use of cleanrooms. Such facilities are now used for manufacturing all types of technology from “nano” to space. As technology evolves, so does the need for cleanrooms.
The space sector is set to grow in the next 50 years. It is planned that the current EXO Mars Rover landing will take place in 2016, which will stimulate the UK’s space industry market further. Last month, NASA unveiled plans for the biggest rocket in history, capable of taking six astronauts to Mars. The unmanned test flights could start as soon as 2017, with the first crew flying in 2021. A mission to a nearby asteroid could follow in 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.
I very much look forward to sitting with my grandchildren watching it all happen.
