Britain hopes to make its first rocket launch since 1971 this evening. When the country last had such big ambitions in space, they soon fell to Earth. Bringing them to fruition this time round will be no easier, as we explained last year
the headland from the Needles, a set of razor-sharp sea cliffs on the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast, lies a curious historical dead end. A series of concrete bunkers built into a hillside are all that remain of a cold-war rocket-testing facility. Built in the 1950s, they were designed to help Britain keep pace with America and the Soviet Union in the race to build rockets and ballistic missiles.
In the next few months Virgin Orbit, a space-launch firm, intends to loft a mix of commercial and military satellites into orbit from the newly established Spaceport Cornwall, based at Newquay airport, 150 miles west of the Isle of Wight. The government, which has become notably keener on the once-unfashionable idea of industrial policy, hopes the launch will help propel Britain’s space industry to great heights.
For now at least, government remains a big customer. Britain’s armed forces plan to spend £5bn over ten years on a replacement for the Skynet military-communications system, and another £1.4bn on new capabilities, the bulk of which will go on a series of spy satellites. Brexit has frozen Britain out of the European Space Agency’s Galileo project, which aims to build an alternative to America’ssatellites; ministers have talked of modifying OneWeb’s satellites to provide an alternative.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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