I vote for putting the second one in Wales.
A remote, boggy stretch of land on the north coast of Scotland is likely to become the UK's first spaceport. The A'Mhoine Peninsula in Sutherland has been chosen as the most suitable place from which to launch rockets vertically to put satellites in orbit. The UK Space Agency is giving Highlands and Islands Enterprise £2.5m towards the development of the facility. HIE will work closely with operators. The American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin wants to be one of the partners.The goal would be to have launches as early as possible in the 2020s.
Lockheed has made no secret of its desire to bring the Electron rocket to Scotland. Currently, this vehicle flies out of New Zealand. A British version of the rocket would have an upper-stage developed and built at LM's UK HQ in Ampthill, Bedfordshire.
Business Secretary Greg Clark will announce further details of government support at the biennial Farnborough Air Show on Monday. He has set aside £50m. £2m of this is to be made available to continue investigations into the siting of a "horizontal launch" spaceport as well. This would see a modified aeroplane leave a British runway, climb to altitude somewhere out over the ocean and then release a rocket that can put the satellite in orbit. A number of such systems are presently in development.
There are 60-plus small launch vehicles in development around the world. A few of them are even based in the UK, and they will regard a home spaceport as a great fillip to their endeavours. Watch for companies like Orbex and Skyrora, both of whom will be exhibiting at this week's Farnborough Air Show. They will be talking about their rocket designs and the type of engines they will use.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44841123
So...polar orbits? Or just really inefficient equatorial ones? Kind of high-latitude, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteThe orbital thing caught me by surprise, especially Electron. All the previous reports I saw about a UK space port were focused on suborbital space tourism flights, for which latitude doesn't matter. I guess orbital launches must be mainly geared towards polar orbits.
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