The State of UK Space

The strengths and weakness of the UK in space, our past achievements and where we might go from here.

On the 9th of January, a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket named Start Me Up failed to reach orbit. This mission had been widely hailed as a breakthrough for the UK, being the first orbital launch from mainland Britain. This story is a little complicated by the fact the rocket was released over the Atlantic Ocean south of Ireland, but more so by the fact that it was an American rocket.

This countries lack of indigenous launch capability has an interesting history. After the Second World War, Britain had acquired some V2 rockets from Germany, and in collaboration with the US launched three of them in October 1945. There was even in 1946 a proposal to use a heavily modified V2 to launch a British astronaut on a suborbital spaceflight. Whilst the US continued development of captured V2s through the Bumper program, ultimately leading to the Redstone rocket which launched their first satellite and first man into space, the UK abandoned rocket development for a while.

However, in 1954 the UK be…