British company completes 1st rocket test in the UK in 50 years
Capitalism in space: A British private company has successfully completed the first static fire test of a rocket in Great Britain in a half century.
Skyrora effectively made the UK ready for launching rockets into space after a team successfully built a mobile launch complex and completed a full static fire test with the Skylark L rocket on it – in only five days. Skyrora’s combined achievement also signifies the first vertical static fire test of this magnitude in the UK since the Black Arrow Programme, 50 years ago. The Skylark L rocket could be ready to launch from a British spaceport as early as spring 2021 and the inaugural launch of the low Earth orbital (LEO) Skyrora XL rocket by 2023.
The Skylark L is intended as a suborbital rocket. The XL will the the first orbital rocket. The company’s goal here is to create a rocket with a very inexpensive mobile ground infrastructure, that needs only a concrete pad to launch. Several smallsat American companies have been working towards this goal. The Chinese, using military equipment, have apparently achieved it. They all now have competition from Great Britain.
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Capitalism in space: A British private company has successfully completed the first static fire test of a rocket in Great Britain in a half century.
Skyrora effectively made the UK ready for launching rockets into space after a team successfully built a mobile launch complex and completed a full static fire test with the Skylark L rocket on it – in only five days. Skyrora’s combined achievement also signifies the first vertical static fire test of this magnitude in the UK since the Black Arrow Programme, 50 years ago. The Skylark L rocket could be ready to launch from a British spaceport as early as spring 2021 and the inaugural launch of the low Earth orbital (LEO) Skyrora XL rocket by 2023.
The Skylark L is intended as a suborbital rocket. The XL will the the first orbital rocket. The company’s goal here is to create a rocket with a very inexpensive mobile ground infrastructure, that needs only a concrete pad to launch. Several smallsat American companies have been working towards this goal. The Chinese, using military equipment, have apparently achieved it. They all now have competition from Great Britain.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Unfortunately, you are wrong. Just over a decade ago the BBC launched a rocket.
https://youtu.be/pJdrlWR-yFM
Well, OK it wasn’t a static test.
It also wasn’t really a serious rocket, but a stunt.
The Black Arrow – from the era of the coloured programs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rainbow_Codes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHBGAyIU8Hw
Tom Biggar,
I missed the static fire test of their rocket, which is what Robert referenced, not launch. However, I liked the “button” at the end of the video.
“The British Space Race”
BBC 2004,
(part 1)
https://youtu.be/yW5X8dhxA_8
(19:41)
can’t forget the British nuclear weapon programme—
“Equinox: A Very British Bomb”
BBC-4
https://youtu.be/Qk_zpjK3cTo
49:13
and…
“Our Reactor Is On Fire”
(1999 version)
1957 Windscale ‘incident’
https://youtu.be/vcsyMvQtlKs
47:48
For the prior Rocket folks out there: Didn’t the photo showing the several trailers (holding control HW and possibly personnel) look awfully close to a static test fire experiment?