Whitehall fillip for UK space industry

The United Kingdom space industry is expected to win more than Pounds 50 million of business as a direct result of a Pounds million injection into the European Space Agency, according to science minister John Battle. The funding for ESA is for the building and launching of a meteorological polar orbiting satellite codenamed METEOP-1. The satellite is expected to provide valuable data on Earth's weather and climate over a 15-year period.