The Innovation Platform spoke with Magdrive and the UK Space Agency to discuss the opening of the Disruptive Experimental Electric Propulsion Laboratory (DEEP Lab) at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
A state-of-the-art laboratory has officially opened at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. DEEP Lab is designed to provide cutting-edge resources and collaborative opportunities to businesses engaged in aerospace and satellite engineering. Established by Magdrive with the support of the UK Space Agency’s Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund, DEEP Lab is set to revolutionise the UK’s capabilities in electric propulsion technology. By providing essential infrastructure for testing and developing next-generation propulsion systems, DEEP Lab aims to address critical gaps in the space sector, enhancing the UK’s competitive edge in the increasing global market for space technology.
With the rise of small satellites and the demand for innovative solutions to meet the challenges of space exploration, this laboratory will serve as a vital hub for experimentation and testing. Companies will have access to specialised equipment and expertise, allowing them to rapidly prototype and assess their engine designs. To learn more about DEEP Lab and the Harwell Space Cluster, The Innovation Platform spoke with the UK Space Agency and Magdrive.
Can you provide a short overview of the types of organisations included in the Harwell Space Cluster?
The Harwell Space Cluster brings together an integrated mix of organisation types, creating a full-spectrum space ecosystem. At its core are government and strategic bodies such as the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency, alongside leading national research institutions like RAL Space, which provide scientific expertise and mission capability. Surrounding these are innovation and incubation organisations, including the Satellite Applications Catapult and ESA’s Business Incubation Centre, supporting commercialisation and company growth.
The cluster is further strengthened by a diverse base of startups and scaleups developing new technologies and applications, alongside multinational aerospace companies such as Airbus and Lockheed Martin delivering large-scale engineering and investment. Specialist space service companies like Astroscale add emerging in-orbit capabilities, while a growing cohort of cross-sector businesses apply space data across health, energy, climate, and analytics. Together, these organisation types form a highly collaborative environment that accelerates innovation from research through to real-world application
Can you provide an overview of the DEEP Lab, including the motivation behind its establishment and the role of the UKSA’s Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund in supporting this initiative?
The Disruptive Experimental Electric Propulsion Laboratory — DEEP Lab — is Magdrive’s electric propulsion testing, development, and qualification facility at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. It brings together the infrastructure needed to develop, test, assemble and qualify next-generation electric propulsion systems in the UK.
DEEP Lab was created to address a clear gap in the UK space sector: limited access to integrated electric propulsion test and production facilities. Companies developing electric propulsion technologies have historically faced constrained domestic infrastructure, high costs, long lead times, and reliance on fragmented or overseas facilities. This has created barriers not only for Magdrive but for the wider UK ecosystem of SMEs, universities, system integrators, and emerging space companies.
The facility supports rapid development and testing of electric propulsion systems, helps improve understanding of how these technologies integrate into different mission types, and enables more efficient approaches to assembly, qualification, and early-stage production. Its capabilities include cleanroom assembly areas, vacuum test chambers, plasma diagnostics, electrostatic discharge-protected areas, rapid prototyping, mechanical workshop capability, and shared working space.
The UK Space Agency’s Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund was central to making DEEP Lab possible at its current scale and pace. Without SCIF support, the facility would likely have been smaller in scope, slower to realise, and less able to operate as a sector-facing capability.
SCIF funding has helped accelerate Magdrive’s commercialisation pathway while creating infrastructure that can support the wider UK electric propulsion ecosystem. It has also provided a visible signal of confidence in Magdrive’s technical direction and the UK’s ability to back infrastructure capable of supporting globally competitive space technologies.
What is the significance of propulsion technologies in space applications, and how will the DEEP Lab’s infrastructure, such as its advanced plasma diagnostic testing chambers, contribute to the development of these capabilities?
Propulsion is a core enabling technology for modern space operations. It determines how spacecraft move, reposition, avoid hazards, extend mission life, and support new mission types. As low Earth orbit becomes more congested and commercial missions become more demanding, propulsion is increasingly important for resilience, responsiveness, sustainability, and commercial flexibility.
Electric propulsion is particularly relevant because it can offer significant improvements in efficiency and satellite lifetime compared with traditional chemical systems. Future spacecraft will need propulsion that can support more dynamic operations, including constellation management, repeated collision avoidance, in-orbit servicing and manufacturing, end-of-life disposal, and defence-related manoeuvrability.
DEEP Lab provides the infrastructure needed to develop and qualify these capabilities in the UK. Its plasma diagnostics and test facilities allow engineers to characterise propulsion performance, understand plasma behaviour, validate design changes, and build confidence in system reliability. Capabilities include emission spectrometry, interferometry, Faraday cups, Langmuir probes, pulsed thrust balance and pendulum thrust balance systems.
The facility also supports testing across different stages of development, from component-level investigation through to integrated system validation. Its vacuum chambers, cleanroom environments and electrical diagnostic equipment enable thruster testing, plume diagnostics, thrust measurements and lifetime testing in conditions relevant to spaceflight.
Novel propulsion systems require repeated testing, measurement, iteration, and qualification. DEEP Lab provides Magdrive and external users with access to specialist infrastructure that would otherwise be difficult or expensive to secure, helping connect propulsion R&D with practical manufacturing, qualification, and customer delivery.
What are the anticipated benefits of having a centralised facility like the DEEP Lab for innovation and collaboration within the UK space sector?
A centralised facility like DEEP Lab reduces duplication, lowers barriers to entry and creates a practical focal point for collaboration. Specialist electric propulsion infrastructure is expensive to build and difficult to access. For early-stage companies and academic groups, this can slow technical development. For more mature companies, limited access to vacuum testing, diagnostics, cleanrooms and qualification support can become a bottleneck in moving from concept to flight-ready hardware.
DEEP Lab helps address these constraints by providing access to specialist facilities, technical expertise and supporting infrastructure. It supports increased demand for electric propulsion through parallel capabilities and multiple chambers; enables research through access to advanced diagnostics and support staff; supports start-ups through rapid prototyping and commercial access; and contributes to skills development through apprenticeships, outreach, and hands-on technical activity.
The facility also strengthens collaboration across the wider space ecosystem. Potential users and collaborators include universities, SMEs, system integrators, primes and other space companies working on propulsion testing, hardware testing, smallsat electric propulsion integration, student projects, and thrust diagnostics.
Its value is not limited to equipment. DEEP Lab helps build the processes, knowledge base and technical confidence required for a more mature UK propulsion ecosystem. A successful propulsion sector depends not only on strong individual companies, but on access to facilities, experienced operators, skilled engineers, collaborative test campaigns and routes for early-stage ideas to progress into flight-relevant development.
The model is already beginning to demonstrate wider sector value. Alongside Magdrive’s own activity, DEEP Lab has supported use by other companies and academic institutions (Southampton University) for propulsion testing and MAIT activity, including third-party use by OrbitFab and Third Planet Orbital.
DEEP Lab supports the connectivity objective that the SCIF pilot programme was designed to encourage: an anchor facility built around a high-growth UK company, with wider access and collaboration across the sector.
How does the opening of the DEEP Lab align with the UK’s broader strategic goals for the space industry, and what role could it play in fostering innovation and growth in this sector?
DEEP Lab aligns with the UK’s broader space ambitions by strengthening a capability area that cuts across economic growth, national resilience, technology leadership, and domestic industrial capacity.
The UK’s National Space Strategy sets out an ambition to build one of the world’s most innovative and attractive space economies, protect and defend UK interests in space, and develop resilient space capabilities and services. Electric propulsion contributes directly to those priorities by supporting mission types that are increasingly central to the future space economy, including in-orbit servicing and manufacturing, space sustainability, defence-related manoeuvrability, and constellation management.
DEEP Lab also responds to a practical industrial constraint: the UK needs stronger domestic infrastructure for electric propulsion development, testing and qualification. By providing that capability, the facility helps reduce reliance on overseas or difficult-to-access test infrastructure and supports technologies relevant to resilience, orbital mobility, in-orbit servicing and future space logistics.
The government’s response to the House of Lords report, The Space Economy: Act Now or Lose Out, reinforces the importance of space to UK prosperity, security, critical national infrastructure and high-value innovation. It also highlights the need for clearer delivery plans, priority capabilities and stronger demand signals for UK space technologies.
DEEP Lab fits within that strategic context by showing how targeted public infrastructure investment can support deep-tech development, attract private capital, create shared sector assets and accelerate the transition from R&D to commercially deployable UK capability.
For Magdrive, SCIF has enabled a step-change in ambition. DEEP Lab supports the development and production of Magdrive’s own propulsion systems, creates a sector-facing facility for external users, strengthens the UK’s position in electric propulsion, and provides an example of government and industry working together to convert national strategy into practical industrial capability.
SCIF has also provided a confidence signal that supports credibility with investors, customers and partners. That value extends beyond the initial grant by helping demonstrate that the UK can provide the facilities, policy support and collaborative environment needed to grow globally competitive space companies.
DEEP Lab therefore offers a practical model for space-sector intervention: focused enough to build real capability, open enough to benefit the wider ecosystem, and credible enough to support follow-on commercial and private investment.
What specific challenges does the UK space sector face in scaling electric propulsion technologies for commercial use, and how is the DEEP Lab positioned to address these challenges?
The UK space sector faces a few key challenges in scaling electric propulsion (EP) for commercial use. Demand is growing quickly, driven by more crowded orbits, the need for frequent manoeuvring, and emerging applications like in-space logistics and constellation management, but domestic capability has not quite kept up.
In particular, there are still limited options for developing and qualifying EP systems end-to-end within the UK, which means companies often have to rely on overseas facilities or a patchwork of providers. That adds cost, slows things down, and makes it harder to iterate quickly. On top of that, the UK’s supply chain and flight heritage in EP are still relatively small, which can make it harder to build confidence with commercial customers.
DEEP Lab is designed to help close those gaps. By bringing testing, validation, and early production capability into one place, it makes it much easier to develop and refine propulsion systems without having to go elsewhere. That is particularly important for EP, where you need a lot of testing to prove performance and lifetime before anything flies commercially. More broadly, it gives the wider ecosystem access to capabilities that have traditionally been difficult to get hold of, which should help speed up development, reduce risk, and get new propulsion technologies into orbit faster.
Conclusion
DEEP Lab demonstrates how targeted public investment can accelerate deep-tech commercialisation, strengthen domestic industrial capability, and create useful infrastructure for the wider UK space sector.
With UKSA’s SCIF support, Magdrive has been able to move faster, build with greater ambition and provide access to specialist electric propulsion infrastructure that would otherwise have been difficult to establish at this scale. As the UK looks to turn space strategy into industrial growth, DEEP Lab provides a practical example of how government support, private investment, and technical innovation can combine to build UK space capability.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 26th edition of our quarterly publication.
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