The UK – neither the government nor the private sector – is going to let the setback in its first attempt to put satellites into orbit be the end of its space programme. After all, it is a sector that contributes twenty billion euros to the country's economy and employs 45,000 people.
The global Britain that would be born from Brexit has not yet taken off, but there is already talk of a galactic Britain that will launch rockets from Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, the Hebrides and the Shetland Islands. It has an advantage over its main European competitors, since being an island it has thousands of hundreds of kilometers of coastline far from populated urban centers and therefore a lower risk of accidents.
The place chosen for the first failed launch was Newquay, a surfing town in Cornwall. But previous enthusiasm turned to disappointment when the rocket launched into space from a modified Boeing 747 (named Cosmic Girl) suffered a mechanical failure, preventing the nine small satellites on board from reaching their orbits. They all burned up on contact with the atmosphere and fell into the sea in West Africa.
The mission was in charge of Virgin Orbit, one of the companies of the tycoon Richard Branson, which had previously carried out five launches (four successful and one not) from its main base of operations in the Californian Mojave desert, with a hot climate. and dry very different from Cornwall. The satellites belonged to companies as diverse as Belgian space security consortium RHEA Group, British manufacturer In Missions, the emirate of Oman and Scottish firm AAC Clyde Space, dedicated to monitoring illegal fishing, smuggling and other questionable maritime activities. All of them were insured but have lost years of work.
Despite the failure, the project has forced the UK to develop the necessary infrastructure and regulatory regime to compete in the space race, especially with Sweden and Norway. And in the future there will be other launches – either with Virgin Orbit or other companies – both from Newquay and from Sutherland and Argyll in Scotland, Snowdonia in Wales and an old abandoned radar base in Unst (Shetland Islands), the northernmost place from the country.
Britain has long had a satellite manufacturing industry, but until recently it had not competed in the launching arena. With the war in Ukraine, European countries have found that they cannot count on Russia to put their increasingly important national security reconnaissance and communications devices into orbit.
The refurbishment of Newquay airport as a spaceport has cost around 20 million euros of public and private money, and the heads of the British Space Agency say that it will not be money thrown away. What happened is undoubtedly a serious setback, but the United Kingdom is going to fight for its slice of a global business that is estimated to generate 600 million euros in 2030.
Europe's space ambitions have suffered previous setbacks, such as when the Italian-made Vega-C rocket botched an attempt to put satellites into orbit last December after lifting off from French Guiana. Or with the delay in the entry into operation of its Ariane 6 launcher, or the blocking of access to Russian Soyuz satellites as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Virgin Orbit is a newcomer to the satellite launch business, dominated by Americans, Chinese and Russians, and by companies like Space X, a twenty-year-old firm owned by billionaire Elon Musk that has successfully launched hundreds of satellites into orbit. they. The enormous technological complexities make it a difficult sector to access, but the United Kingdom is convinced that it is worth the investment and effort, and that before you succeed, you have to fall several times, and get up. The conquest of space cannot be a piece of cake.
