UK Government Funding Boosts CosmoCube’s Role in International Space Exploration

CosmoCube has been awarded £1.5 million as part of a £7.4 million funding package from the UK Space Agency in the “Space Science and Exploration Bilateral Programme”. This investment supports a suite of UK-led scientific and engineering projects that strengthen the UK’s role in global missions to the Moon, Mars, and Venus.

Under this award, the University of Cambridge, STFC RAL Space, and the University of Portsmouth, in partnership with NASA, will lead the development of the mission, space platform, payload, and science for CosmoCube — a CubeSat designed to carry a precision radiometer to probe spectral distortions in the Universe’s cosmic microwave background.

The funding comes alongside broader UK collaborations with international agencies including ISRO (India), JAXA (Japan), CSA (Canada), and NASA, in projects ranging from lunar spectroscopy and detecting subsurface ice, to mapping water-ice on Mars. CosmoCube stands among these as a mission that will advance the UK’s capability in astrophysics and cosmology at the frontier of space science.

This investment highlights the government’s commitment to enabling cutting-edge discovery and establishes CosmoCube as a flagship mission contributing to the exploration of the early Universe.