INTERNATIONAL projects in water quality monitoring and life sciences research were among the proposals to secure grants from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) in the government body’s latest round of funding. One of the largest individual grants was awarded to a UK- and Australia-based group developing a satellite system to monitor water quality. Led by Airbus-owned UK satellite builder Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), the £479,000 grant will help the group develop an Australian satellite to provide detailed biochemical water analysis. Grants were also awarded to several life sciences projects, including £366,000 for a proposal led by UK-based Frontier Space Technologies to design a cargo handling system for next-generation space-based R&D. The International Space Station (ISS), operated by US, Canadian, European, Japanese and Russian space agencies since 1998, currently hosts much of the space-based lab capacity used for life sciences R&D.