Nyx Alpha: the UK's new space telescope

the UK has announced that it will build a new ground-based space telescope system in Cyprus. The project, which is known as ‘Nyx Alpha’, will monitor objects in geostationary orbit, around 36,000 kilometers above Earth’s equator. The space scientist and author David Whitehouse explains why the UK was so interested in a new telescope…

David - One thing that the United Kingdom can do as part of its contribution to the Western Alliance of space powers, is to help understand what's known as space situational awareness, which means what is up there, who's put it there and what it's doing. It's not just a question of, 'oh, our satellites, our television, our broadcast, our military satellites are in geostationary orbit. Let's just look up there.' You've got to take into account the position of the sun, the time of day or night, because there are certain times of the day when you can see into geostationary orbit and see what's there. And there's certain types of day, and indeed times of the year when you can't. So what China and Russia may well do with this type of orbit is they might use the fact that it's possible to hide in space, hide in these orbits. Therefore you've got to develop the data processing techniques and the time of observing to make sure you can spot what they're doing. So this telescope is an addition to the very important area of space situational awareness. It's not a very large telescope, but then again, telescopes these days with sensitive detectors at their focus can be very good at looking at objects orbiting the Earth.

James - Certainly seems like we're entering a new era of warfare, essentially, which is a bit of a scary thought. As well as that contribution to the Western defence space collaboration that you touch on, one of the things we know the UK is genuinely world leading on, in the domain of space, is the manufacture of satellites. So I suppose it makes sense that we're seeking to improve the accuracy with which we can monitor those precious assets and where they might be at any given time.

David - There are hundreds and hundreds more satellites being launched every year. Small satellites for specific purposes of which Britain, as you said, is very good at doing this. But we also in this country build big satellites as well. And they are expensive. Although small satellites are cheap individually, you still have to buy a rocket to launch them. You still have to launch them with another rocket and you launch a lot of them en masse. And look at the conflict in the Ukraine. Elon Musk's internet connectivity satellites fly over Ukraine very regularly, but they've been able to disable or degrade their usefulness over conflict zones so that they're not seen as assisting too much in any one particular side for political reasons. And that involves knowing where everything is, knowing what it's doing, knowing where other people are. And you could say there are signs that the American military in particular has paid a great deal of attention to everybody's space assets that fly over the Ukraine at the moment.

James - It's interesting you touch on SpaceX, a private space enterprise and how they're starting to become a prominent force in space when it's previously been the domain of the state. And this Nyx Alpha project shares that collaborative element between private and publicly funded space enterprises, doesn't it?

David - You are quite right. Nyx Alpha is done, I think, by a small startup company. It's only been around for a year or two called Spaceflux. And it's a fairly interesting startup in the sense that the technology is not fantastically advanced. You need a telescope, a clear site. That's why it's in Cyprus. Better weather, better view of the sky than you get in this country. And there is a need actually for a more widespread global array of telescopes for this space situational awareness, particularly in the Southern hemisphere where there are very few observatories, which look at this type of thing. Because if you've got a satellite that's annoying an American military satellite in geostationary orbit, you can actually move it out of the way. And at the moment you cannot track it. It literally disappears until you see, come back in and perhaps threaten or surveil the satellite again. So this small telescope is presumably going to be one of a new range of telescopes. And this is already happening in the United States where private companies provide vital information about space awareness to the military, of which Britain is becoming a part of, that's going to spread more around the world. And I think you can expect to see more satellites in the Southern Atlantic, in Australia, and perhaps even Antarctica.