ABL Space used to launch Britain’s first orbital rocket

Lockheed Martin said it has selected US-based ABL Space Systems to launch the first orbital rocket from the UK – a mission slated to take place from Scotland in 2022.

The launch is part of an agreement between the UK government and Lockheed to foster a commercial small satellite launch industry in the country. No rocket has ever been launched into orbit from British soil, but the government is now seeking to become both a launching center in Europe and a small manufacturer of satellites.

In choosing ABL Space, Lockheed chose a company that has yet to launch a rocket, although its RS1 vehicle is expected to debut in the second quarter of this year. Lockheed is an investor in ABL Space based in El Segundo, Calif. And believes it is on track to be successful.

“The ABL system is relatively easy, quick and economical to deploy, with fantastic performance, a significant capacity for many of our future customers,” said Randy DeRosa, Lockheed Martin’s program manager for the UK Pathfinder launch program.

ABL is developing ship and fire capacity for its RS1 rocket, which is expected to have a lift capacity of 1.2 tonnes in low earth orbit. The goal is to put the rocket in a few cargo containers, ship it to a launch site, assemble it, and send it to orbit. The company’s base price for a launch is $ 12 million.

Although ABL Space has operated largely under the radar for the past three years, it appears to be well capitalized and has hired well. Last summer, for example, ABL revealed that it had received two US Air Force contracts worth $ 44.5 million and secured $ 49 million in new private funding. An ABL official said the launch from the UK was approximately the fifth mission in its current manifesto and that ABL hopes to establish a steady launch cadence from the Shetland Space Center, allowing it to better serve the European market. satellites.

The UK Space Agency announced its national launch initiative in July 2018. At the time, it awarded Lockheed Martin $ 31 million to develop and demonstrate a vertical launch site in Sutherland, Scotland. In addition, $ 7 million was given to a British company, Orbex, which is developing its own rocket. It was believed then that a launch company chosen by Lockheed, as well as Orbex, would launch from the Sutherland site in the Scottish highlands.

However, last fall Lockheed said it was moving to another location in Scotland, the Shetland Space Center in the Shetland Islands, in the northernmost part of the country. Explaining the move, Lockheed said it ended up having different technical requirements for the launch of Orbex. British officials endorsed the move at the time, saying it would be beneficial to have two complementary vertical launch sites in the UK. (Orbex says it’s still aiming for a 2022 launch date, but that seems questionable.)

Now Lockheed and ABL are stranded at the Shetland site and are preparing for a launch next year. For this first mission, ABL Space Systems’ RS1 rocket will launch a small orbital maneuver vehicle, built by MOOG, capable of transporting and deploying up to six 6U CubeSats. Two of the CubeSats launched by the maneuvering vehicle will be demonstrators of Lockheed Martin technology.