Lockheed Martin animation of UK space launch
Lockheed-Martin-UK-Spaceflight-Programme-Video-720p - .MP4 file.
The UK’s first spaceport, dedicated to vertical launch vehicles, is to be sited on a boggy peninsula in the north of Scotland.
A long-awaited announcement on the location of a British spaceport states that a facility for vertical launch vehicles – in other words, rockets – is to be built on the A’Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland, on Scotland’s north coast. At the opening of Farnborough Airshow, business secretary Greg Clark announced that Lockheed Martin will be closely involved in the development of the site.
The government is awarding the Highlands and Islands Development Agency £2.5 million towards developing the Sutherland site, while a further £2 million from a £50 million UK spaceflight programme will go towards developing proposed horizontal launch sites in Cornwall, Prestwick and Snowdonia. Additional grants will be awarded during Farnborough to help commercial operators develop more strategies for Sutherland.
“As a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, we want Britain to be the first place in mainland Europe to launch satellites as part of our Industrial Strategy,” said Clark. “The UK’s thriving space industry, research community and aerospace supply chain put the UK in a leading position to develop both vertical and horizontal launch sites.” The first launches from the site could be in the 2020s.
The announcement builds on the UK’s proven capacity in developing and building small satellites, Clark added. Commenting on this, Will Whitehorn, non-executive chairman of Scottish satellite builder ClydeSpace, said “From designing and building the very first satellite in Scotland, Clyde Space has grown and become a front runner in small-satellite manufacturing. Having a spaceport located in Scotland will bring about a whole host of commercial advantages and not only to our operations in Glasgow, but to the entire space sector in the whole of the UK.”
For Lockheed Martin, the announcement is part of a strategy to boost space launch technology in the UK. As well as the Sutherland development, the company is working on a Cubesat delivery vehicle in partnership with Moog, designed to carry up to six of the small Cubesat modules and deploy them into orbit at staggered times. This Small Launch Orbital Manoeuvring Vehicle (SL-OMV) “can deploy [satellites] at the most optimal times and positions for their respective missions,” Lockheed says.
Another partnership, with Orbital Microsystems, is to create and fly UK-built pathfinder tests to validate the performance of the SL-OMV. “This historic ‘pathfinder’ launch for the UK will also demonstrate the tremendous potential small satellites and CubeSats have across a wide range of commercial and government data collection applications,” said Lockheed Martin’s UK chief executive space, Patrick Wood. “We believe, as the UK Space Agency does, that this effort will help bring the UK to the forefront of the rapidly-growing, global small satellite market and support the UK’s maturing space supply chain.”
Although most space launches are carried out from sites near to the equator, to take advantage of the effect of the greater speed of the planet’s revolution, Wood recently told the Engineer that sites at northern latitudes have advantages for commercially attractive orbits. “Equatorial launches are good for geosynchronous satellites, but a spaceport in Scotland would be good for polar orbits which are useful for earth mapping and observation and for telecommunications,” he said. Lockheed Martin currently launches its Electron rocket from a site in New Zealand, and the BBC reports today that it has ambitions to launch Electron from Scotland.
The horizontal launch aspect of the announcement will help satellite launchers that take off like a conventional aircraft and release a satellite launcher at altitude to be flown from the UK. Newquay airport in Cornwall has already expressed an interest in hosting Virgin Galactic’s satellite launch capability, which is based around the aircraft that will also launch its passenger spacecraft, currently in trials. The Welsh government also has ambitions to build a horizontal launch spaceport in Snowdonia. Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns commented: “The UK Government has an exciting ambition to take the UK into the commercial space age by enabling small satellite launch and spaceflight from UK spaceports. Wales now has an exciting window of opportunity to take a leading role in shaping that future. We have the right geography and a skilled engineering base in aerospace, electronics and the software industries, standing ready to diversify and to flourish in the fast-developing space market.”
Horizontal launch will also suit the UK developed spaceplane Skylon, which is being designed to use the Sabre hybrid air-breathing rocket jet engine Sabre, being developed by Reaction Engines in Oxfordshire.
I feel rather sad that this spaceport is being sited in such a remote and beautiful part of Scotland. While the artist’s impression shown above suggests a modest development I hope it will not lead to major road developments built in order to service the port.
I’d imagine there would have to be road development; not much point to a spaceport you can’t get rockets and payload to.
It would make sense to place the port that supplies the rockets and the ferry’s etc to the island close to the spaceport, looking at the artists impression it would be possible to site the port within a mile or two.
Just a thought though, how is anywhere in Britain in “Mainland” Europe?
That thought had also occured to me.
Perhaps it will be built as near the coast as is practicable, so the length of any roads built in the area would be kept at a minimum.
The Scots and their nomenclature system. Who else would name an area the Sutherland, when it is situated in the north? I say confusion to the enemy it is.
It’s caled Sutherland because it’s the most southern land settled by the Vikings who invaded Orkney and Shetland.
Interesting in the animation when the rocket is seen to be above the UK that the launch site would appear to be somewhere in Eire and the region of Sutherland in Scotland is nowhere in view! Perhaps the animators need a lesson in geography or perhaps there are other proposed launch sites!!!!!!
Surely all have missed the obvious location for such this facility.
One one of Trump’s golf-courses: then two ‘birds’ might be dealt with at one launch!
If you want to launch a satellite into a polar orbit from the UK, that is probably the place to do it from – provided the trajectory steers clear of Iceland …
I do not find the tundra like topography of edge of Northern Scotland particularly beautiful, I do however wonder what effect the harsher weather conditions along the northern coast will do to launch programmes?
Rocket launches normally need favourable weather conditions, with little or no wind. The site may become redundant very quickly.
Surely Orkney or Shetland would have been better – they’re more easily accessible!
As we have been kicked our of ESAT, this is probably the only way to rescue the Scottish satellite industry.
I’m sure that CalMac will be ecstatic as it will generate no end of ferry traffic for them, as building any sort of road improvemnet will take decades.
The prevailing weather will be no problem if they lean the gantries into the wind and have a recovery area in the North Sea.
Been here before:
http://www.spaceuk.org/ba/blackarrowcancellation.htm
And an old rocket site at:
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1413245
Always worrying when a Politician promotes something beyond there understanding.
Patrick Wood actually mentioned Black Knight/Arrow in his comments on the project.
It would have been interesting to have some idea of the size of the rockets.
And, too, why such a site with apparently lots of room does not have any launch assist (horizontal) included in it.
It should be pointed out that , for Polar Orbits (which can be arranged to be above all of the Earth) the equator is (because of its tangential velocity) the very worst place to launch from.
From what I understand about the Sutherland project, British satellite builders will still have to rely upon foreign companies (including Lockheed Martin) to provide launch vehicles. Hopefully however, Lockheed Martin will indeed develop a rocket manufacturing capability here in the UK, which may then spur domestic firms, such as BAE Systems, to get in on the act and help boost British engineering.
Lockheed Martin are, indeed, planning this; moreover, British vertical launch vehicles are being developed.
From Spaceflightnow.com … “Orbex, a UK-based company development a small satellite booster, have announced their intention to launch from Sutherland”
For a copy of the BIS NLV (Nanosat Launch Vehicle) feasibility study final report about vertical launching from the north of Scotland (https://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/project-nlv) email me (project leader) at robin.brand(at)bis-space.com
Is this just posturing on the back of getting chucked out of ESA? The last launch site was shut to pay for the UK’s venture into nuclear weapons and play catch up with the US.
I dare say this one will be cancelled when the new nukes start running over budget….call me a pessimist.
We haven’t been chucked out of ESA; it isn’t an EU institution.
With improvements in Vertical Take Off Aircraft and Drones it should be possible to launch satellites and spaceships from any commercial airfield. The same safety requirements of any commercial airfield should be meet, and not need to be isolated, the obvious difference being that current commercial aircraft need a long runway, while a vertical take off aircraft or drone only needs the same area as a parking space. If you are concerned about things that may go wrong, then remember that the rocket that is to launch the satellite will be well clear of the airfield before it is launched.