The siren call of rockets lures the UK to under-appreciate its advantage in earthly space-support development.

The siren call of sovereign-launched rockets lures the UK to under-appreciate its advantage in earthly space-support development. A new space rocket test facility was unveiled in the UK on June 17. The National Space Propulsion Test Facility (NSPTF) based at the Westcott Space Cluster in Aylesbury Vale is the only one of its kind in the UK, and one of only three in the world that has large-engine capacity. The facility allows the reproduction of space-like conditions to test propulsion engines. These are the smaller engines equipped on spacecraft and satellites used to navigate in space once the rocket has boosted the craft into orbit and detached.

UK Owned, Operationally Shared, and International Effort: The Strengths of UK Space Development

Any space-related development program is politically and financially risky. While the global space economy currently stands at an estimated $350 billion, with the potential by 2040 to grow to $1 trillion, and with expectedly vast windfalls from space-related activity in terms of the direct economic benefits from mining and salvaging, or the spill-over gains related to scientific discovery and colonization. Though these will take a significant degree of time to realize.

In the meantime, it is a significant political and economic investment for a hoped-for long-term return, in an industry that’s undergoing rapid expansion globally meaning that national pitches for elements of its market are susceptible to being superseded by those of competitors, who may not even be traditional space players. Despite the touted local benefits, the facility due to its high-tech nature will only provide 60 new jobs directly. This during times of economic turbulence, as the UK is currently facing from the combined effects of its post-Brexit shift and the pandemic, can stretch public support for such significant upfront, but distantly beneficial investments. While public polling for UK attitudes to space spending are lacking in detail, in the US, with its far more established space interests, only a third of its public believe that the benefits outweighed the costs, marking political difficulties.   

To limit risks, while the facility will be managed by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the UK Space Agency contributed significantly towards with £4 million, the cost was spread across several international and private partners. The European Space Agency contributed around £4 million too, and several other key UK and private entities like NAMMO Space, who will be the site's host operator, aided in the facilities development and operation. This alleviates the financial and political risks associated with such projects, while also building up private industry connections and advertising the UK as a place of interest for space investment.    

Increasing the UK’s space engine capability

The facility provides a marked increase in the infrastructure of the UK’s space industry. It increases the test capacity, and size of the available engines that can be tested in the UK. Before this, UK-based companies could only test comparatively small engines, having to go overseas to develop larger projects. Now however, the UK can provide cost-efficient conditions for the “largest class of satellite engines” and facilitates its aim to lead in the creation of ever-more powerful interplanetary engines, as spearheaded currently by UK Space Agency backed projects such as the Skylon reusable Space Plane and its hypersonic SABRE engine. In doing this, the UK hopes to make itself one of the foremost prospects for international space companies and a key player in the global space economy.

Facilitating a green lift-off

There is also an increasing emphasis from the government that the centre will lead in testing more environmentally sustainable propellants like Liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen Peroxide. This is a pitch for the UK to play a significant role in the developing “green space” industry, making launches and space-related activities sustainable. The UK had already brokered a space sustainability agreement with the United Nations to highlight its commitment. The UK National Space Agency in partnership with Rolls Royce have also been the first to significantly explore the utilization of nuclear power in space exploration, and in a clear statement of intent, one of the first launches from the UK’s Sutherland Space Port will be a reusable and sustainable rocket in 2022.

In the wider picture the UK is hoping that its space industry will add tangibility to its controversial, despite significant milestones, pitch to be a global climate leader. This is particularly important due to the stakes that post-Brexit Britain has placed on its hosting of the upcoming COP26 to showcase British environmental influence and leadership.      

The UK’s wider space ambition- Launch-capability front and centre

In 2012 the UK laid out its Space Innovation and Growth Strategy which aimed by 2030 to “capture 10%” of the global space market. So far it currently has around a 5.1% share, contributing $14.8 billion directly to its economy. Reaching the 10% market share is expected to provide a significant investment boost and 100,000 direct new jobs spread across the UK. The strategy has thus remained largely the same since Brexit, and has seemingly increased its ambition to achieve the hoped-for growth as a potentially significant contributor to achieving current government promises of levelling up the UK economy.

Plans to meet this are now fairly advanced. Despite there being several potential approaches, the government’s space sector ambitions are led by the idea of developing an indigenes launch capability to be the centrepiece of the new sector. There is a drive to be the “first in Europe to launch small satellites into orbit”. By the end of August, the government will begin issuing licenses to UK spaceport, rocket, and satellite operators permitting them to start launching. The hope is that this will galvanize significant private development of launch infrastructure from operators to support the UK government’s core plan to build at least three space ports.

Geopolitical risk to UK Astropolitical ambitions:

There however remain significant risks as to the success of the UK’s current approach of centre-piecing its ambition of developing sovereign launch capability. The emphasis being placed on the launch capacity as the poster-child for the UK’s arrival as a space industry player means that failure to not only significantly develop, but also sustain and see profitability in the launch sub-sector has significant repercussions for the entire UK space industry's prospects.

This is particularly a concern as the launch sub-sector in the UK is the area of the space industry with the most economic and political risks. For instance, of the three most currently developed space ports:  

1.       Newquay Airport, Cornwall- The UK’s only planned horizontal space port, and only one to be based in England. It hopes to host Virgin Orbital from 2022, facilitating five space flights a year based on space tourism for the immediate future. Of the three, being an existing airport, it has seen the least opposition from environmental groups and other interests. It’s horizontal usage however, significantly limits its potential utilization and commercial opportunities over the medium term, though there is the potential for expanded use if reusable craft like Skylon take off in the near future. Until then financially it is a one-trick pony reliant on space tourism, and Virgin’s offering it at, leaving it economically vulnerable to knocks to the company or an industry that is geared in its early phases towards a limited pool of wealthy clients who have several competing options from the likes of Space X and Blue Origin.   

2.       Space Hub Sutherland, Scotland- A vertical launch orientated space port that aims to be the UK’s first operational one. It primarily is for commercial satellite launches. It was given approval by the Highland Council in 2020, however it has been challenged on environmental grounds by significant campaigners, including some of the wealthiest residents living in Scotland, one of who has invested in a rival project in the Shetlands in a bid to undermine its appeal. This seems to have worked as Lockheed Martin have pulled their funding in favour of its Shetland counterpart.

3.       Shetland Space Centre, Scotland- A second vertical launch facility which aims to corner the commercial satellite launch market. There will be a fair degree of competition between Shetland and Sutherland, providing both are finished as intended. Shetland’s development is currently disputed though by Historic Environment Scotland, who argue that the space port's operations will damage a nearby historic World War 2 radar station.    

 

Several of the other planned space ports have collapsed due to local opposition or lack of interest, while the direct commercial rivalry between the UK’s two currently planned vertical launch ports may likely see one of them abandoned, even after completion and appears to be an ill-thought through idea for the efficiency of UK space investment.

Scotland’s fundamental important to UK launch ambitions

The spectre of a re-galvanized movement toward Scottish independence post-Brexit exacerbates the potential risk of a failure for the heart of the UK’s current space strategy. Scotland, due to its location provides the most efficient access to polar orbits and so is where most UK vertical launch infrastructure is to be based.

The UK is geographically too distant to efficiently utilize a traditional equatorial orbit, and a polar orbit offers superior observational data and global coverage by comparison. However, it is also more difficult to launch into, and equatorial orbit tends to make for more efficient communication satellites as they remain stationary above the earth. While the trend towards smaller satellites aids the UK’s polar orbit pitch somewhat as the lighter weight lessens the equatorial satellites' easier-launch advantage, the fact that different types of satellites benefit from different orbits could mean the UK’s overall launch-sector market is restricted in growth outlook. Though the potential for satellite constellations may see this change over the coming decades.   

The loss of Scotland would then be a major blow. The UK’s orbital case would be severely weakened as England alone is placed awkwardly for efficient polar launches and has no chance of equatorial ones with current technology. Alongside this, Scotland’s loss removes the UK’s vertical launch capability under current plans. The vertical launch is the most commercially ubiquitous and favoured launch infrastructure given it can facilitate multiple activities. Horizontal launch being similarly capable is a far more distant and riskier prospect currently.

The UK’s vertical launch capability is one in serious political risk, and its loss would be a blow to the short-term economic prospects of the UK space-sector. Moreover, it would be politically damaging given the emphasis which government plans have on the development of UK launch capability as a poster child for its space-sector pitch. It is potentially for this reason that radical and geopolitically fraught ideas such as the UK purchasing part of Svalbard in the Arctic to use as a space port, have been reportedly floated on the government benches in an effort to mitigate the risk to the flagship sub-sector.   

These potential local and national risks to UK policy are compounded by its international lack of comparative spending. While the UK stakes out significant ambitions in regard to the space sector, in reality the funding does not match to rhetoric. It spends 10 times less than France, and 5 times less than Italy on sovereign space development. This significantly hampers the UK's hope to be a significant space-launch player.

NSPTF’s alleviation of geopolitical risk

While the UK has centre-pieced indigenes launch capability politically but has not provided the significant financial investment required to potentially achieve the scale of activity and commercial success it hopes to at a global level. The new propulsion testing facility does offer, somewhat inadvertently, a degree of mitigation.

The UK by investing in constructing one of only three such equipped facilities globally, alters the geography of the space race by facilitating the UK to become a viable third option between America and Asia for commercial and public large-engine testing and development. The UK may thus corner a significant share of the space development market, rather than relying on success in the more glamorous and far riskier launch sub-sector. This provides the UK space economy with a more realistic development approach given its current funding, political and geographic risk, and structural constraints than it otherwise would have.

With this space development sub-sector as the backbone of UK space industry efforts, the UK can then afford to play a waiting game with its ambition to develop the flashier indigenes launch sector capability. Space launches are an expensive and rapidly developing area with the potential that vertical launch or more traditional engines are quickly superseded by new concepts such as SABRE or nuclear drives. It is far more efficient for the UK with its significantly lower spending approach to wait for new technologies to become more cost-efficient through economies of scale before taking the leap into the commercial launch sector. In the meantime, the UK should reap the rewards of elevating its space development infrastructure, capacity, and global reputation.