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Jonathan O’Callaghan
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Starting next month, a modified Boeing 747 will fly from Cornwall, the southwestern tip of the United Kingdom, over the Atlantic Ocean. Under the wing of this aircraft will be LauncherOne, a 70-foot-long rocket filled with satellites. be robbed at high altitude, thrown and illuminated before flying into space.
This extravagant procedure portends an exciting new era in British spaceflight. “We are incredibly honored to have this role; it’s a real pleasure to make a first-time launch from the UK,” said Dan Hart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Orbit. , an American company owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. This will be the first orbital release from British soil.
Currently scheduled for October 29 at the earliest, the launch took years to prepare. The UK is already home to many private space companies, but it has a strange record of being the only country to expand and then abandon the ability to launch satellites into space. after a unique and successful orbital flight of its Black Arrow rocket from Australia in 1971. However, in 2014, the UK government put plans in place to reposition it, and promised it would expand advertising ports in the UK that could only launch rockets and touch. in the expanding area market, estimated at $1. 25 trillion through 2030.
They may not be large rockets like those NASA uses to launch spacecraft to the Moon, or those Russia uses to send humans to the International Space Station. Instead, they will be modest, designed to carry small satellites into space, but they will fill an attractive hole in rocket launch capability, as there are no active launch sites in Europe lately, large or small.
Spaceport Cornwall is expected to be the first in the UK to enter the service. The region’s largest airport, Cornwall Airport Newquay, has been remodeled to allow space jets like Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl jet to take off. While the airport and its 2. 7-mile runway look the same, a new construction will allow Virgin Orbit to load satellites into its rocket and then connect it to the wing of its aircraft, while control of the project at the site will be used to carry out launches. The status quo of infrastructure and mandatory takeoff regulations took a long time. “It’s been pretty exhausting,” says Melissa Thorpe, director of Spaceport Cornwall. “Watching it happen will be touching. “
The plane and its rocket will be transported from Virgin Orbit’s plant in Long Beach, California, UK in the coming weeks. Next to it will be a variety of satellites from seven customers. The exact manifesto has yet been made public, but we know it. It will come with ForgeStar-0, a satellite from the British company Space Forge that will test the ability to recover useful materials built in space through Earth’s environment (semiconductors, for example, can advance by being built in weightless conditions). Two small imaging satellites from the UK Ministry of Defence will also be on board, as well as small satellites from Poland and Oman, the latter’s first satellite.
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With its horizontal launch technique, Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne is another of the most classic rockets, which tend to be launched vertically from the ground. After being carried to an altitude of 35,000 feet, the rocket will complete its launch from the thinnest upper environment and make a less difficult adventure into space. Virgin Orbit has already made 4 successful launches from california’s Mojave Desert, but has touted its ability to launch from anywhere on Earth.
This launch will take place late at night, after the advertising flights at the airport end, and many visitors are expected to witness the historic moment of the plane’s takeoff. “We’re still running on those numbers,” Thorpe says. Cosmic Girl will then fly over the Atlantic Ocean, many miles off the coast of Ireland and out of sight of observers on the ground, then enter an oval flight style from which the rocket will launch at maximum altitude an hour after the flight begins. . .
The rocket’s engines, powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, will ignite, accelerating it to a speed of 28,000 kilometers consistent with an hour and propelling it into orbit in 10 minutes, about 500 kilometers above our planet. Once there, it will deploy its satellites before falling back to Earth and basically burning in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, Cosmic Girl will return to Cornwall, with a total flight time of about 4 hours.
The UK is an ideal launch location. Being an island at a fairly high latitude means that rockets can be pushed north over an uninhabited ocean, entering pole-to-pole orbit around our planet. it rotates below, which can be used to “observe farmland expansion or for maritime safety,” among many other applications, says Peter Shaw, a senior lecturer in astronautics at Kingston University in the UNITED Kingdom.
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The Virgin Orbit flight is expected to be just the beginning of the country’s launch prowess. Two other spaceports are being developed lately, one at the northern end of the continental UNITED Kingdom in Sutherland, Scotland, and the other in the Shetland Islands, even further north. of the Scottish coast. Both will be used for more traditional vertical rocket launches starting next year. ABL space systems.
Another British launch company, Edinburgh-based Skyrora, also hopes to succeed in orbit next year with a cellular launch pad that can be packed in a shipping container and can be used from multiple locations. In the coming weeks, the company is expected to carry out a “jump” test in the area with a small rocket, which will shortly reach a cosmic altitude of 102 kilometers, through a launch from Iceland.
If those corporations succeed, wealth can be gained. In the absence of an operational launch site in Europe (the sites are thought to be in Germany, Portugal and elsewhere), European area corporations, instead of sending their satellites to the US, are expected to do so. In the US or elsewhere, you can make a relatively shorter getaway to the UK. “We envision the opportunity to be one of the only launch states that can serve the European market,” says Shaw. “If we get there first, a giant component of European corporations will come to us for small satellite launches. “
Not only does this simplify logistics, but it also means satellite operators can book trips on smaller rockets on shorter timelines than having to wait to hitchhike on larger rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon nine in the US. smaller rockets can mean that launch opportunities will be had in a matter of days or weeks. All UK companies hope to be able to access this market. “There is genuinely healthy competition,” Shaw says.
Cape Canaveral, that may not be the case; at most, there may be only a few launches a month from all UK area ports combined. Still, it’s a desirable time, starting with Virgin Orbit is an effort this fall. “the Russian invasion of Ukraine cut off the Russian liberation functions of the West, there is even more demand for liberation capacity in the Western Hemisphere,” says Laura Forczyk, founder of the regional consultancy Astralytical. “A release facility in the UK could help lessen the launch bottleneck. There is a backlog of applications.
It’s a dubious time in the UK, with a new government followed almost to the end of the Elizabethan era. Now, under the reign of King Charles III, a new era begins, an era that is not tied to the ends of the Earth. For a long time, the United Kingdom is about to fit back into an area country. “It’s sure to be fantastic,” Shaw says.
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