The latest frontier of Scotland’s industry may well be space, with significant investment being made in this emerging sector.
As part of our Who Runs Scotland series, we’ve been looking at this burgeoning industry and some of the organisations and individuals involved.
Space launch was long the preserve of governments, but in the last two decades it has been revolutionised by private companies – most notably Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Scotland – home to advanced satellite manufacturing capabilities, data analysis expertise and a satellite launch market – is vying to be a leading space nation and offers several benefits for launching satellites.
Its northerly latitude allows satellites to cover a wide range of the Earth’s surface for observation and communication, and vast stretches of unpopulated land, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, provide ideal launch sites.
MPs were told recently that a new spaceport called SaxaVord, on the island of Unst, Shetland will be ready for satellite launches by July. It has been touted as the UK’s “Cape Canaveral”.
The UK Space Agency says that 228 organisations in Scotland, employing more than 8,000 people, generated a combined income of £298m in 2021/22, almost double the amount for 2018/19. Space Scotland – a not-for-profit company set up in 2021 to support the sector – estimates the workforce could increase fivefold by 2030.
Those involved in the sector include astronaut Tim Peake, Scotland’s richest man Anders Povlsen, a Ukrainian billionaire once accused of being a Russian spy, and a Pakistani philanthropist based in the US.
More than £106m in grants has been awarded by the UK Space Agency to projects in Scotland over the last decade, a freedom of information request by The Ferret has revealed.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise invested £2.087m into a spaceport in Sutherland and paid £1.963m in grant funding to Orbex for costs associated with developing the site.
Rocket firms
Orbex
Orbex Express Launch specialises in small and medium-sized rockets. The private firm registered in Kent – with a premises in Forres, Moray – aims to launch a rocket called Prime from SaxaVord this summer.
Last December Orbex said it would pause construction of a spaceport in Sutherland to instead focus on its Shetland site. The firm has received £20m in funding from the UK Government.
Its other investors include the state-owned Export & Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), a venture capital company headquartered in London, called Octopus Ventures, and Sohaib Abbasi, a Pakistani–American investor who is the former CEO of software firm, Informatica.
Skyrora
Skyrora Limited has a space rocket engine factory in Cumbernauld and is hoping to fire small satellites into space from the Shetland Isles. Its parent firm is Skyrora Ventures Limited, a company registered in England and Wales.
Skyrora has received £2.5m of taxpayers’ money from the UK Space Agency, and £3m from the European Space Agency. It is ultimately owned by a Ukrainian-born tech entrepreneur called Max Polyakov, who is based in Edinburgh.
In 2022, the US authorities forced Polyakov to sell his shares in Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based rocket maker, amid claims he was a Russian spy. Polyakov strongly disputed the claims and that he posed any threat to US national security, but complied with the order. Last year, however, the US Treasury Department released him from these restrictions.
The British astronaut Tim Peake is on Skyrora’s advisory board.
Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA)
Founded in 2018, RFA is a German firm from Augsburg using 3D printing to make low-cost rockets. Its RFA One launcher “enables small satellites to get into low-Earth orbit flexibly and on a budget”, according to its website. The firm operates in Germany, Portugal, Sweden and Scotland.
In January, the firm announced it had received its spaceflight operator licence from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The licence allows the launch of its 30-metre tall RFA One rocket northwards from Unst, away from populated areas. Last August, one of its rockets exploded during testing at SaxaVord Spaceport.
Scottish spaceports
A spaceport is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft.
SaxaVord (previously known as Shetland Space Centre)
The SavaxVord Spaceport in Unst is at a more advanced stage of development, and is already seeing engine tests. There are hopes for launches from the site in 2025. Anders Holch Povlsen is a major investor and main stakeholder. It will be ready for satellite launches by July, says the BBC.
A number of companies plan to use SaxaVord Spaceport in Unst, the northernmost point in the UK, as a launch site for commercial rockets. Unst, which has about 650 inhabitants, was one of the first Viking outposts in the North Atlantic. Its location means that rockets lifting off from the site do not need to pass over populated areas.
Space Hub Sutherland
The Sutherland Spaceport was granted planning permission in 2020 and Orbex proposed launching up to 12 orbital rockets a year from the facility near Tongue. But the firm said last December it would pause construction and instead focus its efforts in SaxaVord, which is at a more advanced stage with its launch platforms.
Plans for the Sutherland spaceport were vigorously opposed by Scotland’s richest man, Anders Holch Povlsen, the Danish billionaire founder of the Asos clothing chain. He owns more than half of the shares in SaxaVord and has been involved in the spaceport since 2020 when his firm Wild Ventures Ltd invested £1.5m.
Highland and Islands Enterprise, which has provided millions of pounds of funding for the Sutherland project, said it was deeply disappointed by the decision.
Spaceport 1 – North Uist
Construction has begun on a spaceport being built in North Uist. The port is the third launch site to be announced in Scotland in recent years, following the Sutherland spaceport in Melness and SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland.
The Comhairle (Western Isles Council) has secured £947,000 investment from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) towards the £2.6m cost of the project and is contributing £675,000.
The spaceport will be able to support as many as 10 suborbital rocket launches a year, once fully operational.
UK space agency funding
More than £106m in grants has been awarded by the UK Space Agency to projects in Scotland over the last decade. Recipients include the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde, and St Andrews.
The US arms firm Lockheed Martin has received £23m to establish launch operations at SaxaVord and develop related technologies. Headquartered in Maryland, US, Lockheed Martin is a defence firm that employs approximately 100,000 people worldwide. It has been condemned in relation to the bombing of Gaza because it provides Israel with fighter jets.
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