§ 41. Dr. Michael Clarkasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what further major space projects with British participation are being considered following the success of the Giotto mission to Halley's Comet.
§ Mr. PattieThe Giotto mission was indeed an outstanding success, and I was privileged to be present at Darmstadt when the signals from the encounter were received. This project formed part of the continuing United Kingdom space science programme. In the future, United Kingdom scientific groups will be involved in many international missions: for example in NASA's Hubble space telescope; in ROSAT, an X-ray mission being developed by Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States in ISO, an infra-red mission to be developed by ESA; and in UARS, the NASA upper atmosphere research satellite. Participation in ESA's solar terrestrial physics programme, in an X-ray astronomy mission and in a far infra-red astronomy mission is planned for the 1990s, as is significant use of the international space station.
In addition to the science programme the United Kingdom will continue to have a major programme in applications of space technology. We will play a leading role in ESA programmes for the development of advanced 414W telecommunications satellites including marine and other mobile communications systems. There is a significant United Kingdom involvement in ESA's first earth remote sensing satellite, ERS-1 and we are considering participation in future remote sensing satellites for observation of the sea, ice and land regions.
We have subscribed to an ESA preparatory programme studying the European contribution to the international space station project and will shortly be considering participation in the development and exploitation phases.
I recently announced that the British National Space Centre was supporting "proof of concept" studies into HOTOL— a revoluntionary new launch vehicle which would take off and land horizontally. The use of an air-breathing engine and a single stage to orbit is intended to reduce launch costs by a factor of five.