Satellite launch could boost UK's space role

Nation that already constructs orbiting technology could soon also launch it

The United Kingdom's quest to become a major player in the space sector was poised to take a step up on Monday, with the climax of a project to launch a rocket into orbit from British soil.

While the UK still lags far behind major players, including the United States, Russia, China, and the European Space Agency, the planned launch of a rocket from Newquay Airport, in the county of Cornwall in the southwest of England, was widely seen as a massive achievement.

"What we've seen over the last eight years is this building of excitement toward something very aspirational and different for Cornwall, something that started off as a project that not a lot of people really believed was ever going to happen," Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, told the BBC ahead of the planned launch, which was scheduled for late Monday night, but which was vulnerable to potential delays because of poor weather.

The mission involved a repurposed Boeing 747 jumbo jet modified to carry a rocket high above the Atlantic Ocean, and release it and its cargo of nine satellites to complete its journey into orbit.

The satellites were reportedly for both civilian and military clients, with uses said to include ocean monitoring and navigation.

While the mission was noteworthy for its use of a UK location, it was headed by the United States-based company Virgin Orbit.

Pilot Mathew Stannard, a Royal Air Force squadron leader temporarily allocated to the project, told the BBC before the planned launch: "We'll be monitoring the rocket, making sure it's healthy all the way out, and then we enter what's called a terminal count procedure.

"That's where things for us certainly get more interesting, as we go through that sequence of pressurizing the tank and chilling the lines."

Virgin Orbit had previously carried out four successful rocket launches from bases in the US but the mission marked the first time a launch into orbit had been attempted in the UK.

The Evening Standard newspaper said that, if successful, the Virgin Orbit Start Me Up mission would kick-off a UK satellite launch industry.

Thomas Moore, a science correspondent at Sky News, said the UK currently makes more satellites than any nation other than the US but has been hindered by its need to send satellites to the other side of the world to be launched. He said that if it can prove it can launch the satellites it builds, the UK satellite sector can become a major player.

"That all changes now that the UK has the first launch base in Western Europe," he said.

Cornwall was chosen as the launch site because of its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, its small population, and the presence of an extremely long runway.

Sky News said other UK launch sites, in mainland Scotland and off shore in the Shetland Islands, are also being prepared and will be ready later this year.