The secretary of state for science Chloe Smith has hailed the opening of a conference centre at Harwell’s Space Cluster as evidence of reaping the economic benefits which space brings.

Harwell is home to the European Space Agency and 105 space organisations which employ more than 1,400 people.

Leaders and directors of the European Space Agency (ESA), the UK Space agency and Ms Smith came together, along with space industry experts, to celebrate the opening of the Magali Vaissiere Conference Centre.

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The building is named after the first woman appointed as head of a technical department at the ESA and the opening of the new centre comes after it was announced the campus had secured £300m of financing to build 440,000 sq ft of new laboratory and research buildings.

Ms Smith, who gave a speech to mark the conference’s opening, said the UK Space Agency had contributed £7 million towards the centre.

She said: “The government sees investing in the space industry as a way to grow the economy and this is because it is the carrier of such bold discoveries.”

Ms Smith said the research taking place at Harwell campus was “absolutely critical to the economy and central to everyone’s day to day lives”.

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The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was created in February this year at prime minister Rishi Sunak’s discretion.

Ms Smith said the creation of the new department allowed the government to help cities like Oxford to continue to thrive and she said the new conference centre would “reinforce and foster new partnerships with Europe and far beyond”.

Director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said: “The new conference centre is an extension of our activity in the UK.”

Mr Aschbacher heaped praise on the UK for its work as a founding member of the space agency and pointed to the government’s significant contribution at the last conference.

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He said: “It is the focal point for space in the UK in terms of business activities and this new conference centre will bring people together.”

Mr Aschbacher said the centre would be used as a “staging ground” and would be the place where the agency’s “vision is put into action”.

The agency is working on a new initiative called Moonlight which is focused on the creation of lunar communications and navigation services.

Over the second half of the decade, missions will explore earth’s satellite and aims to aid the development of a real lunar economy.

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