RFA UKThe UK’s new spaceport in Shetland will be ready for satellite launches by July, MPs have been told.
A number of companies plan to use SaxaVord Spaceport in Unst, the northernmost point in the UK, as a launch site for commercial rockets.
Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), from Germany, is thought to have the most advanced plans and it was officially licensed for spaceflight by the regulator last month.
During an RFA launch test, a rocket engine exploded at the spaceport in August. The company said no one was injured and the launch pad had been “saved and is secured”.
Jorn Spurmann, chief commercial officer of RFA, described it as a “big and wonderful image” which had resulted in “a lot of learning”.
Another company Orbex, based in Forres in north-east Scotland, recently announced it will switch its first launch from Sutherland Spaceport to SaxaVord. It hopes to blast off its “Prime” rocket for the first time towards the end of this year.
The company said it may restart work at the Sutherland facility if it needs more launch capacity by 2028.
Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee heard from a number of figures in the space industry who hope to tap into a lucrative global market for small satellite launches.
Scott Hammond, deputy chief executive of SaxaVord, said work is ongoing on the integration hangar where rocket stages will be joined together and satellites paired with the launch vehicles.
He told the MPs the company was “absolutely” planning on a launch this year and said staff are now going through a detailed training process.
Mr Hammond said: “Our aim is to have all of that done by 1 July. After which, the second part of the year, we are now ready for launch.”
He suggested SaxaVord was the UK’s Cape Canaveral, stressing there is competition from Norway’s Andoya Spaceport.
Asked whether the spaceport needs more government financial support, he said: “Yes and no, we would quite happily take it, if we don’t get it we will have to go out and get extra money and work very hard.”
He urged the MoD not to rely on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for launches and said the US armed forces space division had “effectively booked all of the launches from the States until 2030 – so if we want to get UK satellites up there, we’re going to have to find another way of doing it”.
Phil Chambers, chief executive of Orbex, was asked about his company’s decision to pause work at the Sutherland Spaceport site.
Highland politicians were disappointed at the decision, noting Sutherland Spaceport has received support from the regional development agency.
RFA UKMr Chambers said it was a purely commercial decision, as completing work at the site near Tongue would have cost £15m and the company had not raised as much money as hoped.
However, he suggested Orbex could restart work in Sutherland if it needs more launch capacity by 2028, adding: “It’s not a decision we took lightly and not one that is easy to chop and change.
“We have a new plan now, which is to do the first 10 launches a year from SaxaVord and then look for the additional capacity in Sutherland.”
He added that objections from Anders Holch Povlsen, Scotland’s richest man and an investor in SaxaVord Spaceport, had not prevented Sutherland from receiving planning permission.
Alan Thompson, head of government affairs at Skyrora, said his company aims to carry out a suborbital rocket launch from SaxaVord later this year.
He said Skyrora has experienced delays from the regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and had carried out its first test launch from Iceland as “we got tired of waiting”.
