First rocket to leave Europe fails to take off

This rocket from a German company, launched from Scotland, exploded on takeoff earlier this week, another failure for the British in the space race.

Forget the exotic side of Florida and Cape Canaveral, from Guyana to Kourou, and imagine a Scottish island, completely isolated, in the North, in the Shetlands, a green island with windswept cliffs, with of course its sheep and its gin distillery. There, in a corner of the island, the British have built on a former radar station, a vertical space launch site. “Vertical” because today rockets are sometimes launched from an airplane in flight. And Monday evening a first rocket was to take off from this launch pad.

A first test that went very badly: engine explosion on takeoff, huge fire, impressive images. Fortunately, the incident did not cause any injuries. The rocket tested was that of the German company Rocket Factory Augsburg. It is a failure for the company and a huge setback also for the British who hoped to strengthen their space sector.

Because we often forget – or we don’t necessarily know – but Great Britain is historically a major aerospace country. The sector is worth 17.5 billion pounds sterling. 50,000 jobs depend on it and more than 2,000 companies are involved, including a prestigious one: Rolls Royce. The British announced that after the rocket explosion, the launch pad had been preserved. The tests will therefore be able to continue in Scotland. The challenge for Great Britain is to gain autonomous access to space, a sovereignty synonymous with very lucrative contracts with the rise of sending satellites into space.

France already has its own launch site, and has been sending rockets for decades. With the European Space Agency, it has its own access to space with the Kourou site in French Guiana, from where the first Ariane 6 rocket was successfully launched last month.

But as we can see, international competition is very strong, with the United States and Russia of course, but also now, India and China. Sweden and Norway have also recently inaugurated “astroports”. All these countries are banking on a host of private companies that are trying to send mini-launchers loaded with satellites into space. The economic market is huge but you have to bet on the right horse, because not all of them are clearly succeeding in their bet.