WASHINGTON — Nearly a 12 months after the failed Virgin Orbit launch from England, United Kingdom government officials remain optimistic concerning the prospects for build up a launch industry within the country.
The U.K. Space Agency released a lessons learned report Dec. 14 on the “UK Pathfinder Launch,” the January 2023 launch by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne from Spaceport Cornwall in southwestern England. The launch was billed as the primary orbital launch from U.K. soil, however the payload of several smallsats failed to achieve orbit when the rocket’s second stage malfunctioned.
“Although the satellites onboard weren’t placed into orbit as a consequence of a technical anomaly with the rocket’s second stage engine,” the agency stated within the report, “this historic event demonstrated the UK’s ability to launch, safely, legally and with the suitable coordination across government.”
The report made several recommendations concerning the technique of conducting launches from the country. That included streamlining the licensing process to make it easier for corporations to exhibit they’ve the financial and technical capabilities to perform a launch, sharing information amongst the assorted government agencies involved in launches and improved coordination with other nations whose airspace and waters could also be affected by launches.
The report concluded that a lot of these lessons were the inevitable results of the first-time application of latest regulations and processes, although in a minimum of one case the federal government put among the blame on Virgin Orbit. It noted that “international engagement was complicated by over-optimistic delivery plans from Virgin Orbit, leading to significant effort and good will being expended across [His Majesty’s Government] and with other nations to enable a launch window that lacked credibility.”
Government officials acknowledge the failed launch was a setback but remain optimistic concerning the launch industry within the country. “It was a blow, right? It was hugely disappointing for everyone involved,” said Craig Brown, investment director on the U.K. Space Agency, during a Dec. 14 webinar on the U.K. space sector by the Westminster Business Forum. “It reflects thoroughly the challenges of launch and space basically.”
He argued there was still a job for the country in launch, citing a “bottleneck” in launch globally. “Does the business case still stack up for small launch within the U.K.? We consider that it does,” he said. “There are good reasons for the U.K. to have sovereign capability and have the option to launch its own satellites from its own soil.”
Later within the webinar, Colin MacLeod, head of U.K. spaceflight regulation on the Civil Aviation Authority, said current regulations were “fit for purpose” based on the strong interest his office is seeing. “We currently have nine launch corporations in various stages of applications with us because the regulator. There’s not many other countries on the earth that may say that.”
He didn’t disclose the names of those corporations, but several corporations, each those based within the U.K. and elsewhere, have announced plans to launch from spaceports within the country as soon as next 12 months. The U.K. Space Agency announced Dec. 13 that the European Space Agency’s “Boost!” program had awarded 6.7 million kilos ($8.5 million) to HyImpulse and Orbex to support development of environmentally sustainable systems to support launches from spaceports within the Shetland Island and northern Scotland, respectively.
HyImpulse, which announced an agreement to launch from SaxaVord Spaceport within the Shetlands Nov. 15, plans to start orbital launches there as soon as late 2025. Orbex, whose chief executive abruptly resigned in April, has not provided recent updates concerning the status of its launch vehicle or launch site. An organization spokesperson said Dec. 6 the corporate didn’t have a date for its first launch.
MacLeod said that regulators faced criticism each before and after the Virgin Orbit launch. “We had a whole lot of media attention within the runup to the Virgin launch telling us that we were too slow, too strict and that we would have liked to get on with things,” he recalled. “After the Virgin anomaly, we were told we did it too quickly, we didn’t consider things in enough detail and got all of it flawed.”
The experience, he said, demonstrated how “incredibly complex” all the problems related to launch are. “The teachings which have been learned have been very precious.”