Orbital operator

We encourage you to speak to us before you apply to discuss your planned mission. Complete our pre-application form, which we will review before inviting you to a meeting; this will help us to understand your proposed mission and timescales. We can also discuss the requirements you need to fulfil as part of your application.  

You should read the guidance for orbital operator licence applicants and licensees carefully before submitting your application. Depending where your planned activity will be carried out, you should also read ‘OSA Guidance for Applicants’ and/or ‘SIA Guidance for Applicants’ .

To apply complete our online application form. 

£6,500 is the fee for each application. This is non-refundable and non-transferrable.

Payment of an application fee does not guarantee that a licence will be granted.

Where separate entities are responsible for the operation of a satellite and the procurement of a launch of a satellite (and both activities fall under the SIA or the OSA), each entity will require a licence, and each will be charged a separate application fee.

You can find more information in the CAA scheme of charges.

If you are applying for multiple, identical licences you may qualify for lower fees through the Government’s refund scheme.

You will also need to complete our technical question set, radio frequency/spectrum question set, financial question set and national security question set (this is available to download in the portal).

Email your answers to commercialspaceflight@caa.co.uk.

To grant a licence we need to be satisfied that you have met six legislative tests:

• international obligations
• national interest
• financial resources
• fit and proper persons
• safety

Information on the details you will need to provide to enable us to assess your application against these tests is set out in the Regulator’s Licensing Rules (CAP 2221).

For any application you will be expected to demonstrate how you will work to ensure your operations are safe and that risks are as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).

Once we receive your application, it will take at least 6 months to assess.

If your mission is novel or complex, for example close proximity operations or in orbit manufacturing, it may take at least 12 months.

You can confirm if your mission is considered novel or complex in pre-application.

• You will be assigned a regulatory specialist who will be your main point of contact through the assessment and be with you every step of the way.
• We complete an initial screen of your application documents to make sure you have provided everything we need to carry out our assessment.
• When we have all the documents, we need we will assess your application in detail. When we have further questions for you, our regulatory ‘clock’ will stop on the assessment until you provide the information required for us to continue.
• Any licence we grant will include conditions with which you must comply. To show compliance, you may need to send us information for example, details of any tests or rehearsals you conduct. We may also choose to carry out inspections of your sites.

The duration of a licence granted under the SIA or OSA, is mission dependent and will be set out in the licence.

All orbital operators use ground stations for their operations, for tracking, command and control.

The CAA has recently revised our policy relating to ground stations as part of ongoing efforts to streamline and improve our regulatory processes for operators. These changes will come into force on 27 July 2026.

All orbital licences issued after this date will have the following reporting requirement in their reporting plan:

"The Licensee must notify the Regulator in writing as soon as possible after deciding to use, and in any event, before using any additional ground stations for secure command and control of the satellite"

If you have one of these new licences and want to use another ground station, that wasn’t included in your original application, you must tell us before you start using it.If there are any concerns or we need time to carry out checks, we’ll let you know. Otherwise, you can go ahead, and we’ll add the ground station to our list for monitoring.

For applicants, the changes are minimal - you will need to provide us with a list of your ground stations at application (we would usually expect this as part of your answer to question 5-A-02 of the Technical Question Set). When your licence is granted, your ground stations will not be listed on it, but it will have the above requirement in the reporting plan.

For licences granted before 27 July 2026 which retain conditions related to ground stations, licensees can get in touch and we will discuss how we can do this in the most efficient and proportionate way. There may be opportunities to remove the old condition and bring old licences into line with new ones.

This guidance on the new policy will be merged into the next revision of CAP2210: Guidance for orbital operator applicants and licensees.

Further guidance can be found under Space Guidance.