UK Stands Up Space Effects Squadron as Solar Developers Squeeze Into Tight Sites

The announcement came at the inaugural UK Space Power Conference in London. Air Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth, according to The Register, said the squadron will safeguard the benefits space gives to the armed forces and be capable of denying those benefits to adversaries.

The Register reported on 26 September that No. III Space Effects Squadron joins two existing units, No. I Space Operations Squadron and No. II Space Warning Squadron, which watch and warn of threats in orbit. The new squadron will have the ability to act.

How exactly is not public. The UK has limited launch facilities and no anti-satellite missile systems, as far as The Register is aware. The Ministry of Defence says the capability rests on "advanced technology," including electronic warfare to "disrupt, degrade and deny hostile actions." That wording points to ground-based jamming rather than kinetic weapons. The Register asked the MoD for specifics and was told there is not much more that can be said because the information is classified.

A deliberate choice to avoid missiles

The UK has formally ruled out destructive anti-satellite missile testing. Instead it works through the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Four countries are known to have tested anti-satellite missiles: the US, Russia, China and India. Russia destroyed one of its own defunct orbiters in 2021, endangering the International Space Station. The ISS also had to manoeuvre that year to avoid debris from a Chinese test years earlier. In 2022 the UN passed a US-led resolution calling on countries to commit not to conduct similar tests.

That has not stopped China from looking at other ways to take out orbital assets. The Register notes China has examined lasers and high-power microwaves, and the US Space Force has claimed to observe Chinese satellites practising "dogfight" manoeuvres in orbit. The MoD says the new squadron will support both offensive and defensive space operations and will expand as new capabilities enter service.

Satellites are critical for both national security and daily life, enabling intelligence gathering and missile warnings, while also providing telecoms and weather forecasts, the MoD states.

Emergency services rely on satellite navigation for responses, and energy networks use the precise time coding in those signals to synchronise power grids. That dependency is why the RAF wants a unit that can do more than watch.

On the ground, solar developers fight for acres

The same day The Register published its report, CleanTechnica ran a story about a different kind of space problem: land. Tina Casey wrote on 27 September about Cultivate Power's new Bowes Solar array, an 11-megawatt (DC) project on a 22-acre site in Elgin, Illinois. The parcel sits between two residential subdivisions and is crossed by high-voltage power lines and train tracks. A wetlands area occupies one corner.

Cultivate divided the installation into two arrays to fit the irregular footprint and still meet setback requirements without touching the wetland. The company used a high-density racking system from Planted Solar, mounted low to the ground, and added an opaque fence and screening so the panels are not visible from outside the site. "Developing solar on constrained parcels is a growing focus for the industry," Cultivate told CleanTechnica in an email last week. "It's becoming more important as competitive land use drives solar onto smaller and smaller parcels."

The numbers explain the squeeze. Planted Solar says community solar projects generally need 5 to 7 acres per MWp, the theoretical maximum output under ideal conditions. On that conventional rule, an 11-megawatt array would not fit into 22 acres. Planted's software-enabled racking needs about 2 acres per MWp and can fill irregular spaces that a standard array leaves undeveloped. At that density, a 5-megawatt community solar project would need about 15 acres instead of 40 to 50.

Another rule of thumb is that sites with a slope of more than 10% require grading, which often kills community solar projects on cost. CleanTechnica's piece cuts off mid-sentence on that point, so the source does not say how Cultivate handled slope at Elgin.

Community benefits as a permitting tool

Chronicle Media, cited by CleanTechnica, reported that the Bowes array will lower electricity rates for ratepayers through the utility Commonwealth Edison, covering 580 low- and moderate-income households. The project aims to save customers 20 percent on energy charges and will also benefit three small businesses, two towns and a church. Cultivate officials say subscribers will save $13.9 million on their ComEd bills over 40 years, according to Chronicle reporter Bill Dwyer.

Property tax revenues from the site are expected to total $2.1 million over the next 40 years, benefiting the local school district and other agencies. CleanTechnica notes Cultivate is also contributing to Elgin Community College and Food for Greater Elgin, a member agency of the Northern Illinois Food Bank, plus Friends of the Fox River, We Care Solar and the Evolve Foundation. Those payments are not just charity. They are the price of local consent in a sector where community opposition and government intervention at federal, state and local level increasingly limit where projects can go.

CleanTechnica frames small-scale solar as rarely newsworthy, and the Bowes project would normally stay local. What makes it worth noting is that it demonstrates a workaround for the land constraint that is now the binding limit in many markets, not panel prices or inverters.

The AI value question, measured in standing executives

Away from hardware, THE DECODER published a report on 26 September by Matthias Bastian that captures how hard it is to document returns from another capital-intensive technology. The AI bubble debate, Bastian writes, boils down to one question: is revenue at AI labs growing fast enough to pay for the data centre buildout?

Azeem Azhar, founder of the research group Exponential View, offered an anecdote on a podcast with Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic. Speaking to about 160 IT vice presidents in Las Vegas, Azhar asked who could point to measurable AI results. Two-thirds stayed standing, more than he expected. He then asked who had results good enough to interrupt the CEO's summer vacation. About eight people remained on their feet.

Azhar's takeaway, per THE DECODER, is that companies are making progress but slowly, and whether that pace justifies current investment levels is open. Some executives say boards are growing more ambitious after early wins, and even in slower markets like Italy, Azhar heard from CEOs that trust is building and budgets are rising despite missteps. Others are shifting from expensive frontier models to open-weight alternatives, which could mean usage grows while less money flows back to fund the buildout. Azhar points to a Boston Consulting Group survey finding that about 70 percent of CEOs worldwide say AI success matters for how they are perceived in their roles, an incentive to paint a rosier picture. He calls the situation "finely balanced."

The three stories share a pattern. Each involves a technology whose value is asserted more confidently than it is measured. The RAF says its new squadron will disrupt and deny hostile actions, but the capability is classified. Cultivate says subscribers will save $13.9 million over 40 years, a projection, though the 20 percent rate cut and the 580 households are concrete. AI leaders say returns are coming; two-thirds of 160 IT vice presidents can point to something measurable, and roughly eight of those 160 would wake a CEO over it.

The dates matter here. The Register's report and THE DECODER's piece both ran on 26 September, and CleanTechnica's on 27 September. All three are fresh. The oldest item in the dossier, a Coverage Cat launch page dated 22 September, is background at best: it advertises a licensed insurance brokerage serving California, Florida, New York, Texas and Washington, with an API for agents. It has no bearing on space missions or solar siting, and it is not evidence for anything above.

What the RAF squadron and the Elgin array have in common is that both are responses to scarcity. In orbit, the scarce resource is assured access to communications and navigation, and the UK has chosen jamming over missiles. On the ground in Illinois, the scarce resource is flat, unencumbered land, and Cultivate has chosen denser racking over a smaller project. Neither answer is free, and neither has been tested at scale. Both will be judged by results that, for now, are either classified or projected.