The government said on Wednesday that the UK Space Agency would be present as an independent unit to cut the cost of bureaucracy.
It will be absorbed by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in April 2026.
The government says that this will save money, cut repetition and the minister’s monitoring will be ensured.
But a leading space scientist said that the move would disintegrate in the short term and the UK lost the ground for its international contestants for a long time.
Dr. of Open University Shimon Barber feared that scrapping the UKSA would lead to “losing the focus” to the Britain’s space zone.
He said, “Countries around the world are recognizing the importance of space by establishing national space agencies, and seems like a backward step for the government to scrap us,” he said.
The UKSA was made 2010 in response to the growing importance of the region for the economy.
The development of small spacecraft, satellites and space instrumentation is an area that excels in the UK, thanks to the agency. Its role is to develop the country’s space strategy, coordinate research and commercial activities and to contact with international partners.
During his tenure, Uxa saw a UK astronaut, Tim Peak launched in space to work at the international space station and developed Britain’s ability to launch small satellites and other small payloads in space from Scotland.
The space field generates an estimated £ 18.6bn in a year and employs 55,000 people across the country.
The agency, its budget and activities will now be absorbed in DSIT. It follows a commitment to reduce the cost from the Prime Minister Kir Stmper and cut the number of government bodies of arms lengths, known as Quangos (semi-optional non-governmental organizations), which begins with the abolition of NHS England declared in March.
Space Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Bringing things at home means that we can focus a lot of integration and focus on what we are doing while maintaining scientific expertise and immense ambition of the region.”
The merger will create a unit within the DSIT, to maintain employees and UKSA names by experts from both organizations.
But the supporters of the space agency, such as Dr. Barber fears that this will mean a loss of the dynamic, active approach of the agency that has proved so successful for the UK’s space science and its space industry.
He said that there was a danger of going into more bureaucracy, low incentive methods, which he said that government departments were more specific, and that was the reason that the agency was built in the first place.
“It seems that we are going to get caught in the mud again,” he told BBC News.
