Two years after legislating for the UK to become Europe’s space pioneer, January 2023 saw the first ever orbital rocket launch from British soil. Is this the dawning of a new era of space exploration for the UK? Ross Henry Law, senior reporter at National Technology News, reports.

In 2021, the UK government passed legislation enabling the country to become the first European nation to launch spacecraft and satellites from home soil. At the time, the government said that the new regulation could unlock £4 billion in market opportunities over the next decade and create thousands of jobs.

The next year, the UK Civil Aviation Authority issued its first ever UK spaceport licence to Spaceport Cornwall.

Richard Lowe, technical services director at the Satellite Applications Catapult (SA Catapult), says that the spaceport licence in Cornwall is emblematic of a much more space-aware UK government. He notes that in recent years, the likes of the UK Space Agency and the UK’s Ministry of Defence have "really begun looking at space and recognising the important role it plays for our economy and security”.

He says: “The UK government recognises the value of space, and access to it, as part of our critical national infrastructure. The government's actions to enable Spaceport Cornwall, and the other developing sites, are clear evidence of that."

Virgin Orbit was the company that conducted the historic first ever orbital launch from UK soil with its LauncherOne rocket at Spaceport Cornwall. However, the 9 January ‘Start Me Up’ mission – named after the famous Rolling Stones song – failed to reach orbit when an anomaly caused a 'premature shutdown of first burn of second stage’.

Speaking on a recent panel at the SmallSat Symposium in California and while acknowledging that it was still premature to formally declare the root cause of LauncherOne’s failure, Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart said all evidence to the failure was pointing to a component in the rocket’s second stage engine.

It was a “$100 part that took us out”, he explained, adding that “a filter that was clearly there when we assembled the rocket but was not there as the second stage engine started…[and this] meant it was dislodged and caused mischief downstream.”

“Failed space missions can and do happen; they are not uncommon,” says Orbex chief executive Chris Larmour, who said that he wishes all the best for Virgin Orbit and its future endeavours.

“In the UK, Scotland is a good choice for launching satellites into orbit,” Larmour continues. “Launch operations conducted from Sutherland Spaceport located on the north coast of Scotland provide safe access to high inclination low Earth orbit (LEO), Polar Orbits and Sun Synchronous Orbits (SSO).”

According to Claire Barcham, director of strategy at the UK Space Agency, the UK pioneered small satellite launches, and there is mounting appetite for companies looking to launch small satellites.

"Back in 2012, small satellites made up about one per cent of the total mass of satellites being launched into orbit,” she says. “By 2019, that had risen to 11 per cent with around 500 satellites launched globally, and by 2021 that had risen to 1,900 satellites – it's all being driven by a data revolution."

Barcham explains: “The data satellites can provide helps us navigate around the world, helps businesses communicate instantaneously and supports governments in monitoring our climate and supporting our environment – all that demand had led to a huge drive in the number of satellites that need to be built, and launch vehicles that need to be available to get those satellites into orbit."

Larmour says that with satellite launches, customers have a requirement to place them into the best orbit for the task they will be undertaking. Therefore, having the ability to reach different orbits is key.

He explains: “Sutherland in Scotland is also sparsely populated, and the flight path for the rocket does not pass any population centres, making this a low-risk location.”

The satellite industry and their requirement for launchers that can put satellites into specific orbits has grown in recent years, says Larmour, and continues to grow exponentially.

“It creates a huge demand for a dedicated and sustainable launch offer such as that offered by Orbex from Sutherland Spaceport,” he says.

Adding to the UK’s geographic suitability for launches, Barcham says: “We have so many coastal locations from which you can safely launch, and being in a northerly latitude gives us access to polar orbits that spaceports in other locations simply cannot."

The Didcot-based Satellite Applications Catapult focuses on a range of space-based initiatives such as Earth Observation activities and emergent fields like robotics and interactions between spacecraft.

SA Catapult is also involved in satellite communications services and supporting the integration of these services into everyday life, to realise the full benefits of what satellite communications can bring and the needs they can serve which are either not practical or not economic for ground communications infrastructure.

Part of the reason SA Catapult was established was also to facilitate and boost UK space sector growth.

“The industry has gone through a lot of changes in recent years and is moving towards a world where there are lots of startups and innovative ideas and a more commercial way of operating in the space sector now, compared with the earlier, far more state-based model,” explains the technical services director Lowe.

He continues: “SA Catapult is here to support, nurture and increase growth in the UK space sector. There are many different technology areas which must come together to reach and operate in space, and to deliver benefits for society. Space is hugely impactful for environmental monitoring as well as every-day services such as communications and satellite navigation.”

Lowe goes on to share that the field of interactions between spacecraft in space is relatively new, and that it will “probably be the next new large sector of the space industry”.

He explains: "So far the space industry has generally been about single spacecraft which go up with a specialist task, perform that, and end their mission; but what we are potentially looking at here is the birth of a logistics sector for space."

He continues: “Supplying, repairing, and maintaining spacecraft in orbit, moving products around and storing products in space - These services will become an underpinning layer for the developing space economy. Logistics services will be a new part of commercial and national space activities, enabling them to grow and achieve things that they never could before.”

SA Catapult recently partnered with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Remote and Challenging Environments robotics group to demonstrate how remote handling and robotics technology developed for fusion energy research can be used to provide maintenance for in-orbit satellites and the ‘de-orbiting’ of space debris such as ‘dead’ satellites and old spacecraft parts.

“The issue of space debris is a pressing one,” explains Jeremy Hadall, robotics lead at SA Catapult. The work currently being done at the SA Catapult envisions an end-to-end system which is environmentally conscious.

“The majority of items launched into space since 1957 are still there and as an industry we've not really thought much about it. If the industry continues to act like this, this approach is going to come back and haunt us.”

Further emphasising why we should care about space debris, Hadall cites a theory known as the Kessler Syndrome where once you get one collision, it could cascade into further collisions which could ultimately result in a situation where it becomes difficult to move around the planet because there is so much debris.

He adds: “Regardless of whether we launch anything else now, the amount of debris in space is going to exponentially grow over the next 10-30 years and with humankind relying on the space environment ever more for our communications and all the things our satellites do, so we need to do something about it.”

Orbex is one of the few European launch companies that has been able to generate significant levels of funding.

“That is largely because we have been able to demonstrate consistent technical and commercial progress to existing and new investors,” explains Larmour.

He continues: “Less well-funded launch companies or launch companies that are in an earlier stage of their development may struggle to access the capital they need to develop their capabilities and carve out their place in the market.”

The UK Space Agency plays a key role in championing the UK’s space sector, with one of its key focuses being to “catalyse investment”.

Barcham says: “To have a healthy space industry we need to make sure that companies in the sector are successfully attracting investment and raising revenue so that they can innovate exciting new projects and services and compete effectively with other competitors around the world."

Hadall explains that the challenge for satellite operations which the SA Catapult is working on are twofold. While he says that the development of robotics technology for space mirrors that of terrestrial robots with many of the challenges well-defined, a commercial challenge remains – that of “buy-in.”

“We need to get people to understand that servicing, refuelling and repairing satellites is an economically viable task,” he says, but at present this is “technologically risky”.

He explains: "If someone services a satellite but services it wrongly or is not able to refuel it, that would be a major commercial risk to the satellite operator.”

He adds that this is one of the SA Catapult’s biggest challenges which is getting satellite operators to understand that maintenance is something they need to perform.

“The Catapult is here to help bring operators and service providers together so that between us, the technical risks can be overcome,” he says.

To address this challenge between organisations involved in the space industry, Lowe is part of a working group designed to tackle this issue head-on alongside fellow leaders in the sector.

"I'm the co-chair of a working group across the UK space sector which is focused on in orbit service and manufacture,” he explains. “This group helps bring together the views of around 50 organisations across the UK who are each trying to address the problem of how to get a commercial business up and running that addresses addresses challenges like satellite de-orbiting at end of life, and re-fuelling to extend operational life.”

He continues: “These organisations are all coming together in this working group forum. The group helps them to build business connections and understand what's taking place across the sector. The group also provides recommendations to government and helps to shape the way forward.”

Speaking to what the SA Catapult hopes to achieve, Hadall explains: "We can send robots into space to capture dead satellites, repair malfunctioning satellites, and move satellites, and ultimately in 20-30 years we can start recycling those satellites into constituent parts."
Addressing sustainability, Barcham says the UK Space Agency has already announced its intention to create regulation and incentives for companies in the sector to be more sustainable by lowering the cost of launch licences and insurance.

She says: “Our plan for space sustainability will hopefully ensure that we are driving responsible space activities, but we're also looking at innovative technologies to help companies to do that as well.”

Some of this help includes awarding funding. Last year, the UK Space Agency awarded a share of £4 million in funding to two companies for missions that will help to remove debris.
Barcham adds: "We are also looking at technology that will help to deorbit satellites more safely, so they don't become debris in the future."

The UK space industry now has more government awareness and support than ever before, and this is further helped by the ability to launch missions from UK soil.

While the country’s first space mission did not share the chart-topping success of its namesake, it seems clear that there is a bright future ahead with continued collaboration and information sharing across different sectors that can utilise the value of space.

The opportunity here is to amplify the space sector as a world-leader for sustainability, harnessing a range of UK-based expertise in driving future value and innovation, in order to establish the country as a genuine force within the global space sector.

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