Satellites from Shetland ?

The proposals are at an early stage, but if the Shetland Space Centre Ltd gets its way, Unst could become the UK’s premier spaceport with a local economy revitalised by blasting satellites into orbit. The company was set up on the island, a breathtaking fragment nearer Norway than Edinburgh, after it was identified as the most promising launch site in Britain, in a study supported by the UK Space Agency.

A report on the project, known as Sceptre, found that rockets launched from Saxa Vord on Unst could carry the greatest payloads into commercially valuable orbits with the lowest risk to inhabitants if the spacecraft failed and crashed back to Earth.

Unst is so far north that rockets lifting off from the island could fly straight into orbit without passing over populated areas, unlike those from other sites which would have to perform dog-leg manoeuvres, limiting the weight of the payload they could carry.

The Sceptre report assessed the risks of launching from a range of sites to polar and so-called sun-synchronous orbits, which are in high demand from satellite operators for communications and Earth observation respectively. According to the document, the next best locations after Unst include a site in the Orkney Islands, followed by others on the north coast of the mainland.

In 2014, the UK Space Agency identified eight places in Britain that could potentially host a spaceport, but selection was based on sites that had extremely long runways and other facilities needed to fly spaceplanes, which take off horizontally, rather than vertically. A spaceport in the Shetlands would launch conventional satellite-bearing rockets straight up.

Burns said she had not heard any voices against the proposal, despite the inevitability that frequent rocket launches on an island 12 miles by six might impinge on the tranquility of Unst. “I like the peace and quiet, and I love the scenery, but I like to get away too,” she said. “You’d get cabin fever if you didn’t get off for a bit.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/14/satellites-could-be-launched-from-shetland-islands-most-nothern-isle