Branson rocket failure made Britain look bad – but we will change that, says Science Secretary

Telegraph

29-03-2025

When Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit rocket failed on its maiden launch from Cornwall in 2023, it brought Britain's space aspirations crashing down to Earth.
Now, Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, is determined that the UK will shake off its image of a 'plucky' yet unsuccessful nation to become a dominant force in the space industry.
He personally intervened to ensure that SaxaVord Spaceport on Shetland will get government support to embark on the first vertical satellite launches this year.
And he has not ruled out human space flight from this side of the Atlantic.
'I'm certainly not going to put a cap on anything Britain can achieve, because I think we have the ability to do things that most people don't believe is possible right now,' he told The Telegraph.
'And I think it's about time Britain just lifted its head up to the horizon and thought a bit more ambitiously about what we can achieve as a country.'
Speaking of the unsuccessful Cornwall launch, he added: 'I watched it live, and the worst thing about that is you think, 'That's what we do, we're plucky, we try, but we never get there'.
'SaxaVord feels different, because the Arctic orbit is unique, it's not something you can get from mainland America, so if we do this we can have a realistic opportunity for us to find our feet in a fast-growing market.
'If we can have those successful launches from SaxaVord, I think Britain would sit back and watch the TV screens like I did as a child at school when we all gathered around the television to watch the Space Shuttle launch. It would be just a lovely moment for our country. '
Mr Kyle was speaking during a visit to the Airbus factory in Stevenage, which has just won a European Space Agency (Esa) contract to build the lander for the ExoMars mission, that will land the first European rover on Mars to look for life.
The original lander was designed by Russia, but Esa severed ties with Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, at the start of the Ukraine war, leaving it without a way to get its rover to the Martian surface.
The Hertfordshire factory also built the rover – dubbed Rosalind Franklin after the British chemist who pioneered the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA – so already had an intimate knowledge of the cargo and an extra interest in getting it down in one piece.
The £150 million contract is a major boost to Britain's space interests.
Mr Kyle added: 'It is important for Britain and our prestige as a country that we have something that is going to be so globally significant coming out of Stevenage and then right the way to Mars.
'We're going to get so much information that it's going to seep its way through the scientific community.
'It might end up in medical technology, it might end up in an understanding of humanity and life itself. And it might answer some of the big existential questions that we often strive for.
'I'm sure they're not going to find a skeleton there. But even if its microbial life, that proves there is life elsewhere in the universe and I'm just excited for whatever comes back.'
As well as being built in Britain, the rover is also carrying a suite of instruments from British universities including University College London (UCL), Aberystwyth, Birkbeck College and Leicester.
The rover's high mast is fitted with a special camera that scans the Martian surface looking for minerals that may prove there was once liquid water that could have hosted extraterrestrial organisms.
Once a watery location is discovered, the rover will trundle to the spot at a speed of around 47 inches an hour, before drilling six-and-a-half feet down into the ground to take samples.
The Martian rocks are then fed through an aperture on the rover into a mobile laboratory – the first ever on a rover – where they are crushed up and examined for organic matter. Confirmation of life could come within just weeks or months of the rover landing.
But getting the rover to the surface is not easy. Fewer than half the soft landings on Mars have been successful, and Britain suffered a notable failure when Beagle 2 vanished after touching down in 2003.
Caroline Rodier, who is leading the lander programme at Airbus, said: 'It's quite a challenge. The outer shell will provide quite a lot of deceleration, then there are two parachutes, one sonic and one subsonic, and after that a big thruster engine for the final few minutes.
'Once the lander arrives, then the rover has a few days to effectively unfold, sort of like Wall-E in the cartoon and start deployment.
'There is clearly strong hope that we're going to discover new things. It would be mind-blowing to find life on another planet and we could quite quickly know much more about Mars. It is exciting.'
Mr Kyle said he had sometimes found it a struggle to make the case for space, particularly after a National Audit Office report warned last year that Britain was not getting value for money on its investment in Esa – a situation that has since improved.
The SaxaVord spaceport has continually complained that help from the previous government was lukewarm and they had to, largely, go it alone.
Mr Kyle said he also had the option to give up on the spaceport.
'Those who put to me arguments that the money could be used better elsewhere, the thought that I kept coming back to is the knowledge that if I turn this off, it's not coming back again,' he said.
'So did I want to be the person that just turned hope off? I didn't, so I also met all of the characters involved, and their passion is enthusiastic, it is contagious and but it is underpinned by scientific rigour.
'It feels so British, with a sort of 'can do' Heath Robinson attitude but built on proper foundations, so it has the best of all, all of our scientific characteristics.'
SaxaVord has attempted one static-fire test of a RFA (Rocket Factory Augsburg) rocket last year but it ended in a dramatic explosion.
But the company says it is back on track for launches this year and is racing against Norway to be the first vertical launch from Europe.
The ExoMars mission is due to launch in 2028 with the support of Nasa and land on Mars in 2030.
Kata Escott, managing director of Airbus Defence and Space UK, said: 'Getting the Rosalind Franklin rover on to the surface of Mars is a huge international challenge and the culmination of more than 20 years' work.
'Rosalind Franklin will be the first Martian rover able to analyse samples from two metres below the surface in its search for past or present life.'