![]() ![]() RAF Chief ACM Sir Stephen Hillier warned that the UK was at 'at acute risk' due to emerging threats in orbit. The UK, which until only very recently eschewed human spaceflight and launchers, to concentrate on satellites and satellite services, has also awoken to the economic potential of the global space market and is aiming to grow the UK’s share from 6.5% to 10% by 2030, to generate £40bn a year – as well as develop its own ‘end to end’ space infrastructure with a spaceport and launch capability.Īll these provide the context as to why ‘space is now too important to be left as a niche’ for defence users as one speaker put it. Space is now far cheaper and spy sat capabilities that would have amazed the CIA in the Cold War, can now be built by students at university - and there is an explosion of innovation such as reusable launchers that only a few years ago would have seemed like science fiction. Yet, oddly, this civil and military dependence on space is mostly taken for granted - the vast constellations of satellites that provide the vital sinews of modern life are in a way ‘out of sight, and out of mind’. On the military side, from GPS navigation debut in the 1990 Gulf War, the range of capabilities that now depend on space is staggering - with this system being one of the key enablers behind the West's precision targeting. ![]() Many of these companies did not exist 20 or even 10 years ago, yet utilise space-based data and services to provide new business models. New companies such as Uber, AirBnB, Gogo etc all rely on satellites as an essential part of their business. What has also changed is wider society’s dependence on space too for everyday life - as well as military operations - moving critical services into an industrial base in orbit. More recently, reports of Russia jamming GPS on US aircraft over Syria, has also focused Western military minds on vulnerabilities. China’s anti-satellite test in 2007 which generated a cloud of space debris, was a wake-up call that old presumptions about space as common good need to be rethought. There is no doubt that the current diplomatic spat over UK’s involvement and access to the EU’s Galileo navigation system has focused minds in Whitehall over long-neglected security and military aspects of space and thus may have played some part in fast-tracking this conference, but there a wider trends at play here that have been building up to make this a highly topical and long overdue event.Īs noted in a previous Insight blog - today the range of space threats is expanding and includes anti-satellite weapons, GPS jamming and space debris. With a range of high level speakers from the RAF, MoD, Joint Forces Command (JFC), UK Space Agency, FCO, USAF and industry the conference covered a wide range of topics. The first UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Space Conference, organised by the Air Power Association, and held on 21-22 May in London proved to be a extremely newsworthy and significant event - as Britain starts to flex its muscles in military space matters. TIM ROBINSON reports from the inaugural MoD Defence Space Conference in London. Bluetooth gamepads now control more similarly to the Touch controller thumbsticks for a more seamless experience.On its 100th anniversary the Royal Air Force becomes the lead service for British military space, as the UK MoD gets set to release a new Defence Space Strategy later this year. Now, the default controls for your ship use the thumbsticks for ship movement. This latest update includes a host of other changes as well. According to Orange Bridge Studios Director, Justin Wasilenko, “This is as close to the graphics from the Rift version as we could manage inside this amazing standalone headset.” ![]() You’ll now get the newly supported 90Hz mode for a smoother experience, Facebook’s new Phase Sync feature is enabled for reduced latency, and the overall Level of Detail for the Quest 2 version is bumped up to the “same levels” as on Rift. With Update 1.0.6.1 the Quest 2 is now able to really set this game apart. I previously called it a great alternative to Star Wars: Squadrons and now that’s even more true for Quest 2 owners. After today’s update, I think they’ve accomplished that. You can watch a short gameplay clip of End Space on Quest 2 with the new update installed right here:Įnd Space has been available on Quest obviously, but now that the Quest 2 is out the opportunity is there to make that version the definitive way of playing the game. Originally released way back on the Gear VR Orange Bridge Studios have continued to support and expand the game to every single major VR platform and now the Quest 2 is getting some specific love and attention. End Space is one of the best single-player focused arcade-style space combat VR games out there. ![]()
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