What UK funding can a space startup actually apply for?

Three main routes: UKSA's own national grants such as the National Space Innovation Programme, ESA calls carrying a UKSA-funded UK budget line such as GSTP, and — since 1 January 2024 — Horizon Europe, where UK entities compete under similar conditions to EU member states. University-industry schemes like SPRINT add a lighter-touch route for early-stage engagement.

What is the UK Space Agency?

Q: Is the UK still in ESA after Brexit?

Yes. ESA is an entirely independent organisation, not an EU body, so Brexit did not touch UK membership. The UK helped found ESA in 1975 and remains one of its 23 members today; UKSA manages the UK's ESA subscription and channels national money into ESA programmes.

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is the UK government body that sets the national direction on space, sitting within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). For founders it matters mainly as a funder: it runs national grant programmes for space technology, manages the UK's membership of ESA, and administers the UK's post-Brexit association to Horizon Europe.

Three routes to UKSA-linked money

National grants. UKSA's early-stage national grant route now sits under the National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP). Its predecessor, the Enabling Technologies Programme (ETP), ran four calls in 2022–2023 funding academia, industry and non-profits building TRL 1–4 technology at £100,000 to £250,000 per project; those calls have since closed, with NSIP's own early-stage strand, Kick Starter, now covering the same TRL 1–4 ground at a larger £150,000 to £1,000,000 per project — a natural first stop for propulsion, optics or instrument concepts still at lab stage.

The ESA route. UKSA also buys UK access into ESA optional programmes. In March 2026 it opened £14.7 million through ESA's GSTP: £7 million as a co-funded call aimed at UK businesses, plus £7.7 million of fully funded ESA technology contracts open to organisations of any size, including universities and non-space companies.

Horizon Europe. Since 1 January 2024 the UK has been an associated country to Horizon Europe, so UK entities can join or lead consortia under similar conditions to EU member states across the framework programme. The one carve-out is the EIC Fund's equity arm, where investment into UK companies stays conditional on a separate enlargement of the UK's association agreement.

Alongside these sits a lighter layer: UKSA co-backs university-run schemes such as SPRINT, which connects space SMEs with expertise, data and facilities at five UK universities (Leicester, Southampton, Surrey, Edinburgh, the Open University) through a Research England grant. Founders who call themselves "SPRINT alumni" typically used that access to de-risk a technology before, not instead of, a UKSA or ESA grant application.

Why Brexit did not remove the UK from ESA

ESA is not an EU institution — in its own words it "is an entirely independent organisation" that cooperates with the EU only through a framework agreement, and several member states sit outside the EU entirely. The UK helped found ESA in 1975 and remains one of its 23 members today, so ESA access never lapsed. Horizon Europe access, by contrast, did lapse post-Brexit and had to be renegotiated — which is why the two dates, 1975 and 1 January 2024, matter for anyone mapping UK funding eligibility.

Official sources: gov.uk — UK Space Agency, gov.uk — £14 million funding boost to power UK space technology innovation, gov.uk — National Space Innovation Programme, ESA — Member States & Cooperating States, European Commission — UK association to Horizon Europe.

Written by Tymofiy Badikov, founder of VIRA.space (Virtual Innovation Research Assistant) — operated by Space Tech Gateway Sp. z o.o., Kraków Technology Park. VIRA tracks live European space funding calls and checks your eligibility free: see live tenders.