Orbex's 40-tonne rocket launch platform is transported to test site as Highland space hub project takes another step forward
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Space flight firm Orbex has taken another step towards its goal of launching commercial rockets from Space Hub Sutherland.
The Forres-based firm’s newly built LP1 rocket launchpad has been moved from where it was built at CGC Shot Blasters, Peterhead, to a test site at Kinloss.
Orbex announced in December that it had started building its first state-of-the-art launch platform.
It is the first orbital launchpad constructed in the UK in more than 50 years since the High Down Rocket Test Site facility on the Isle of Wight, was decommissioned in the early 1970s.
Orbex commissioned marine and lifting equipment design and manufacturing company Motive Offshore Group to fabricate and install the launch platform.
Th 40-tonne structure was loaded onto trucks last Friday and, accompanied by a police escort, taken the 80 miles from Peterhead to Kinloss
The platform will replicate operations intended at Space Hub Sutherland and will be used to test Orbex's Prime rocket, a micro-launcher designed to transport small satellites weighing around 150kg to low Earth orbit.
It will allow for full "dress rehearsals" of the launch procedure.
A spokesman for Orbex said: “The launch platform offers all the infrastructure and supporting services that will enable a wide variety of integration tests to take place during launch preparation.
“This will include the testing of the main propellant tanks and multi-engine hot fire testing under vertical firing conditions.
“It will also enable the launch operations team to test launch procedures including rollout, strongback erection and fuelling procedures in advance of the first expected launch”
Construction of Sutherland Space Hub is due to begin early in 2022 ahead of the first expected rocket launch later in the year.
