‘Yesterday afternoon, shattering the moorland peace of Inverard, in North Argyll, powered jets burst into action. For the second time in two months a space ship took off, its fiery trail vanishing wisp-like into the blue autumn sky.”
Thus Angus MacVicar began his novel Return to the Lost Planet, with words that have stayed with me since its publication in 1954 and its later serialisation by the BBC. Scotland was here depicted as an international centre of rocketry, with its glens and hills regularly reverberating to the sound of missions blasting their way to other worlds, in this case “the lost planet” of Hesikos.
This fictional vision of my home country – as a space power – has never left me and, I am happy to report, after many decades, my hopes for Scottish rocketry may, at last, become reality. According to current schedules, Scotland will indeed ring to the sound of rockets regularly demolishing its moorland peace as probes are blasted into orbit round the Earth. Indeed, two rival centres, one in Sutherland, the other in Shetland, are already vying to become the first spaceport in Britain – indeed in Europe – next year. Other sites – in the Western Isles; at Machrihanish, near Campbeltown, in Argyll; and at Prestwick, near Glasgow – are also being considered as launch centres.
This rocket renaissance will not be totally restricted to Scotland, of course. Cornwall and Wales have also outlined plans for their own spaceports. The crucial point is that Britain seems on course to achieve its goal of becoming a satellite launch power in its own right, after decades of relying on US or Russian rockets to put our probes into orbit. Such confidence is worth noting after a week in which a major player in this fledgling industry – Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit – announced that it was shutting down operations, triggering headlines about the threat to UK space ambitions.
Virgin Orbit used a jumbo jet, christened Cosmic Girl, to carry a rocket, strapped to a wing, to high altitude where it was released and ignited, carrying its satellite cargo into orbit. Several payloads were launched from California this way but an attempt to repeat these successes in Cornwall earlier this year ended in failure. Last month, Branson chose to auction off Virgin Orbit’s main assets, recovering just over $36m (£29m), a mere 1% of the company’s Wall Street value of $3.5bn in 2021.
The demise of Virgin Orbit was regrettable but it was not a major setback, insiders insist. They say that the changes that have been transforming the launch business have a momentum that is too great to derail Britain’s space ambitions – which are primarily focused on developing vertical take-off rockets to launch satellites for telecommunications and for monitoring Earth’s environment.
“The first satellites that were used to monitor the Earth were the size of cars. Today you could fit them into a small shoebox,” says Matt Archer, launch director of the UK Space Agency, which provides seed funding for many spaceport projects. “That is a game changer.”
Such dramatic miniaturisation means that three-stage behemoths – like the 54-metre-high Ariane 5 rocket – are unnecessary for launching the kind of satellites that the UK wants to put in orbit. The Orbex Prime rockets that will take off from Space Hub Sutherland – located on the A’Mhoine peninsula northwest of Tongue village – will be 19 metres high and consist of only two stages. ABL rockets that will lift off from SaxaVord on the island of Unst, in Shetland, will be only slightly bigger.
These two sites come with benefits. Earth-monitoring spacecraft that study sea-level fluctuations and ice-sheet changes often fly in orbits that sweep them over the poles, allowing them to monitor the entire planet underneath. So, blasting a rocket northwards, over open seas instead of over inhabited land, gives a key advantage to spaceports such as Sutherland and to SaxaVord, which is located on the most northerly inhabited island in the UK.
Archer predicts that there will be around a dozen launches from these spaceports by the end of the decade. These are not going to make them the Cape Canaverals of the north. But they will still have an important impact. The oil industry is leaving Scotland, young people are departing from rural areas, and the population there is ageing. A vibrant space industry will provide jobs for skilled, educated young people. The Scottish government estimates that its space sector could generate £4bn for the economy by 2030, as well as creating 20,000 jobs.
It is a promising prospect, though caution is required. No rocket has yet taken off from British soil and put a satellite into orbit. The technology is risky. Just ask Branson. Delays are likely and next year’s schedule for the first launches from Sutherland and Shetland could easily slip. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful about the realisation of my childhood dream. One day soon spaceships will indeed fracture the tranquillity of the Highlands as they head to the heavens.
