Virgin rocket flop is NOT the end of Britain’s race into space

The tearful, disconsolate expression on the face of Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, was worth a thousand words. Britain’s bid to be part of a global space race seemed to have met with a huge setback when Virgin Orbit’s rocket malfunctioned 100 miles above Earth, forcing nine advanced satellites into oblivion and sparking headlines of sorts that it was best left to Hollywood.

There were immediate suggestions that Britain’s unpredictable windy climate made it unsuitable for rocket launches.

This was accompanied by a dollop of gloating that it was a costly embarrassment to Richard Branson, the country’s most adventurous entrepreneur.

Now that the dismay has subsided and the cosmic aficionados on the Newquay airstrip have disappeared, it’s worth remembering that nearly 54 years after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, rocket technology is still struggling with reliability. The 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle just 73 seconds into flight, killing the seven astronauts on board, is etched in my memory as a US correspondent at the time.

Few lives have been lost since then, but there were at least a dozen launch failures last year alone. These include problems for the Astra missile at Cape Canaveral, a debacle for India’s first launch, the failure of Japan’s Epsilon missile, and setbacks for Europe’s Vega missile. Dozens of satellites have fallen to Earth. The history of industry leader Elon Musk’s £110 billion SpaceX is littered with failures.

Despite Newquay’s frustration, it’s far from over for Britain’s spaceports. Branson is actively pursuing another job attempt from the UK this year. And Germany’s SaxaVord has just signed a multi-year agreement for a new spaceport in the Shetland Islands.

Britain is not alone in trying to conquer the skies. Among future space explorers, the Chinese have an ambition to colonize the moon and harvest precious metals.

Whether or not the UK is successful in establishing a network of spaceports, it is better placed than many of its rivals to provide much of the advanced satellite and other technology the space industry needs. Leading British defense giant BAE Systems is heavily involved in the race for the stars.

And a brilliant young British mechanical engineer, Abbie Hutty, who is now lead systems engineer at Ispace in Luxembourg, previously led the Airbus team in the UK that developed the robots designed to collect samples from Mars.

The aerospace industry supports nearly 50,000 jobs in the UK with 3,000 highly skilled positions added in recent years. It generated £16.4 billion in revenue in 2020, with a third of that going to exports. More satellites are being built in the UK than anywhere else except California. But British prowess has caught the attention of predators. The high value placed on British skills in space is symbolized by the £10bn pursuit of satellite pioneer Inmarsat by US competitor Viasat.

Emotional: Melissa Thorpe after the setback

Inmarsat creates technology that allows aircraft to communicate with each other online and passengers to go online during the flight. To close the deal, Viasat has made all kinds of commitments to maintain a strong presence in the UK, support research and development and improve education for young people who want to get involved in space travel.

The deal was backed by former Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng but is being investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Anyone looking for an insight into the depth and high value of the UK’s aerospace industry need look no further than the payload of the failed Virgin Orbit mission.

Aboard the rocket carried by ‘Cosmic Girl’, the Virgin Orbit 747 that returned safely to Earth after a successful first stage, were nine small satellites representing a variety of government and private sector projects around the world , including the UK, US, Oman, Poland and the European Space Agency.

One of the saddest losses was the first satellite from Cardiff-based start-up Space Forge, which aimed to improve manufacturing in space. A test navigation satellite was also lost from Belgium’s Rhea to track data from the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult, which offers a wide range of navigation services.

British pioneer: Virgin’s failure won’t deter people like Abbie Hutty

Ambition to explore the cosmos has sprung up in some of the UK’s most unlikely locations. On a business park in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Metalysis has spent two decades extracting rare metals from rock. His technology could be invaluable when humans return to the moon and the Rover mission eventually makes its way to Mars.

Much of the criticism of Britain from Labor and the left is that the UK is losing ground to its competitors and that its low-value economy is slow to innovate and change.

Space defies that analysis. Despite the setbacks, it remains one of the UK’s most productive sectors with a ‘Gross Value Added’ of £133,233 per worker – three times the national average.

It makes it all the more important that the ambition for a network of spaceports is not abandoned because of the launch failure and that valuable British satellite expertise, such as that of Inmarsat, is not sacrificed on the altar of Mammon.