Tue, 14 May, 2024
TWI has joined Space Park Leicester, a £100 million science and innovation park.
Led by the University of Leicester in partnership with Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP), Space Park Leicester is a world-leading cluster for innovative research, enterprise and education in space and Earth observation.
Bringing together industry and academia, Space Park Leicester opened in 2022 to provide state-of-the-art facilities for research, development, and manufacturing, housing companies and end-to-end capabilities from satellite design and engineering, through to downstream data and its applications.
This latest collaboration builds upon TWI’s decades of experience in the space sector, with TWI Business Development Manager, Vito Di Pietro, saying, “We’re very well suited to tackling the manufacturing challenges faced by space companies and have joined Space Park Leicester to define our identity in the sector.”
Vito continued, “Joining Space Park Leicester is helping us to engage with other established space companies and organisations and gives us a physical presence in the East Midlands to take advantage of regional funding opportunities and to join local clusters,” adding, “Moreover, we see value in gaining access to Space Park Leicester’s manufacturing and testing capabilities which are complementary to our offering.”
This latest announcement follows on from TWI becoming the European Space Agency’s official Technology Broker in the UK and the announcement of our running the space technology transfer programme, ‘Prepare for Space.’ The activities will promote and support a collaborative ecosystem of space and non-space entities while offering routes for non-space related organisations to enter the sector.
Vito explained, “We see this as an opportunity for collaboration with Space Park Leicester and the University of Leicester, and as an additional service that Space Park Leicester could offer to attract new players to the space sector and to Leicester’s new Space City cluster.”
Space Park Leicester’s Head of Commercial and Innovation, Vinay Patel said, “TWI has provided services such as the development of materials, coatings processes and procedures to the space industry for over 30 years, working on several projects related to materials engineering and manufacturing technologies, developing advanced welding, joining and inspection technologies for space applications, as well as innovative materials such as lightweight alloys and composites. We’re thrilled that TWI has joined our vibrant community at Space Park Leicester.”
As part of the agreement TWI staff have been granted a licence to work from Space Park Leicester, including access to meeting rooms, shared working areas and potential access to testing capabilities on site.