SaxaVord's first launch is near. It won't reach orbit
HyImpulse plans a suborbital launch from Shetland's SaxaVord between 5 and 18 October, while ESA puts another €2.7m into RFA's delayed orbital rocket. Britain's first vertical launch is close, sort of.
Nearly three years after SaxaVord in Shetland became Western Europe's first fully licensed vertical spaceport, it still hasn't launched anything. That could change soon. German start-up HyImpulse is planning a launch window from 5 to 18 October for its SR75 rocket, and on 23 September the European Space Agency (ESA) put another €2.7 million into getting the spaceport's other tenant, Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), off the ground.
So Britain's first vertical launch looks close. It's just not quite the one the government has been talking about for years.
This investment in Rocket Factory Augsburg is a strong vote of confidence in the UK's growing space sector.
— Baroness Lloyd, UK space minister, in ESA's announcement
Up and down, not round and round
HyImpulse's SR75 is a suborbital rocket. It goes up to space and comes back down rather than putting a satellite into orbit. According to European Spaceflight, it can carry up to 250kg to around 200km, and its first flight was in May 2024 from the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia. For the Shetland flight, the rocket is expected to travel about 135km north, with the booster and nose cone splashing down separately in the sea. The daily launch window runs from 07:00 to 12:00 UTC.
A few caveats are worth knowing. European Spaceflight reports that HyImpulse has not said whether any customer payloads will fly. It has submitted an environmental assessment to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), but reporting hasn't confirmed that a launch licence has been granted. And HyImpulse is bringing its own launch rail, because SaxaVord abandoned Project SkyReach, a £378,000 UK Space Agency scheme for a shared suborbital rail. According to European Spaceflight, "a minimal amount of funding, < £10,000, was drawn down for design work but that was it".
The orbital rocket that keeps slipping
The launch Britain has really been waiting for is RFA One, a three-stage rocket about 30 metres tall that ESA says can put 500kg into a 500km sun-synchronous orbit. In January 2025 the CAA gave RFA the first orbital launch licence for the UK and Europe.
It has not been a smooth ride since. European Spaceflight notes that an August 2024 static-fire test at SaxaVord destroyed RFA's original first stage. A replacement arrived in July 2026, then hit "an unspecified issue" that meant taking the rocket apart for investigation. SaxaVord had announced a launch window from 10 August to early September, and Shetland News reported that RFA postponed it without a new date.
The new ESA money, awarded through its Boost! programme, pays for test stands at SaxaVord for RFA's Helix engines and its second stage, plus preparations for its first two test flights. European Spaceflight says RFA's Boost! funding from Germany, Portugal and the UK now tops €33 million. ESA says a hot-fire test on the pad is coming soon. It doesn't give a launch date.
Why Britain cares
The UK's last go at launching satellites from home soil ended badly. In January 2023, Virgin Orbit's rocket was dropped from a jet flying out of Spaceport Cornwall and failed to reach orbit, losing nine satellites. The company filed for bankruptcy that April. Getting a vertical launch working from Shetland would give the UK its own route to space.
It's worth being clear about what's actually on the calendar:
- 5 to 18 October: HyImpulse's suborbital SR75 flight window, subject to weather and approvals.
- No date: RFA One's first orbital attempt, still waiting on a static fire.
- Up to 30 a year: the number of launches SaxaVord's CAA licence allows. The current total is zero.
To be fair to SaxaVord
Rocketry is hard, and first launches slip everywhere, not just in Shetland. The spaceport has done the slow regulatory work: it got its CAA licence in December 2023, and RFA secured Scottish Government approval for launch debris in July. It has also persuaded two separate German companies to fly from a small island off the north of Scotland, which says something about its appeal to European launch firms. HyImpulse has just raised €50 million from investors, according to Shetland News, and the UK Space Agency has backed its SaxaVord plans. If the SR75 flies in October, it will be the first launch of any kind from the site, and that deserves credit even if it isn't an orbital one.
Mind the hype. Britain is about to go to space. Briefly, and then straight back down.
Sources: ESA, European Spaceflight (RFA funding), European Spaceflight (SR75 window), European Spaceflight (launch rail), Shetland News, SaxaVord Spaceport, KeepTrack, Wikipedia: SaxaVord Spaceport, Wikipedia: Virgin Orbit