The UK’s first vertical rockets will launch in 2024 after a spaceport in Scotland’s Shetland Islands received approval from aviation authorities — in a boost to Europe’s rocket and small satellites startups.
The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has granted SaxaVord Spaceport on the island of Unst a licence for up to 30 launches a year, after checking it met the safety and environmental requirements for vertical launches.
This is one of Europe’s first such spaceports to be fully licensed; currently, Europeans wanting to send something into space usually have to hitch a ride on a SpaceX rocket or go down to French Guiana. Investors say more spaceports should help bring down prices per launch, allowing startups to deploy faster and cheaper. Having spaceports on European soil is also strategically important for the region’s tech sovereignty.
Another spaceport opened last month in Norway.
German space startups Rocket Factory Augsburg and HyImpulse Technologies are expected to become some of the first users of the former RAF base.
“The granting of SaxaVord’s spaceport licence by the UK Civil Aviation Authority is a hugely exciting milestone as we look forward to the first vertical launches from UK soil in the coming year,” said Matt Archer, director of launch at the UK Space Agency.
Spaceports able to host vertical launches are subject to more stringent safety rules and are taking longer to be authorised than those such as Cornwall Spaceport, which hosts horizontal launches involving rockets carried by aircraft that take off horizontally.
In January, Munich-based Rocket Factory Augsburg entered a multi-year deal with the SaxaVord spaceport to launch to a 500km orbit by the end of 2024.
HyImpulse, a launch services provider and DLR spinoff based in Baden-Württemberg, followed suit in November, when it signed a letter of intent with the aim of launching a rocket in late 2025.
Last week, HyImpulse was awarded £3.4m in UK Space Agency funding to undertake its Hybrid Propulsion Test Programme ahead of the launch of its first rocket from SaxaVord.
Competition among spaceports is heating up, as others in the northern Scottish county of Sutherland; Kiruna in northern Sweden and Andøya off the coast of Norway are all planning to host orbital launches in the next year or so.
