ABL space systems
Lockheed Martin says it has selected US ABL Space Systems to launch the first orbital rocket from the UK – a mission expected to take place from Scotland in 2022.
The launch is part of an agreement between the UK government and Lockheed to promote a small commercial satellite launching industry in the country. No rockets have ever launched into orbit from British soil, but now the government wants to become a launch center for Europe and a small satellite manufacturer.
When choosing ABL Space, Lockheed chose a company that has not yet launched a rocket, although its RS1 vehicle is expected to make its debut in the second quarter of this year. Lockheed is an investor in ABL Space-based El Segundo, California, and believes it’s on track to succeed.
“The ABL system is relatively easy, fast and cost-effective to implement, with fantastic performance, which is a key capability for many of our future customers,” said Randy DeRosa, Lockheed Martin’s program manager for the UK Pathfinder Launch. program, said.
ABL is developing a ship-and-shoot capability for its RS1 rocket, which is expected to have a lift capacity of 1.2 tons to a low earth orbit. The goal is to box the rocket into a few cargo containers, send it to a launch site, assemble it and send it into orbit. The company’s base price for a launch is $ 12 million.
Although ABL Space has largely worked under the radar for the past three years, it appears to be well capitalized and well leased. Last summer, for example, ABL revealed that it had received two US $ 44.5 million US Air Force contracts and secured $ 49 million in new private financing. An ABL official said the launch from the UK is about the fifth mission in its current manifesto and that ABL hopes to establish a regular launch cadence from the Shetland Space Center, making it possible to better the European satellite market serve.
The British space agency announced its local launch initiative in July 2018. At the time, he had allocated $ 31 million to Lockheed Martin to develop and demonstrate a vertical launch site in Sutherland, Scotland. In addition, $ 7 million has been granted to a British company, Orbex, which is developing its own rocket. It was then thought that a launch company selected by Lockheed, as well as Orbex, would start from the Sutherland site in the Scottish Highlands.
Last fall, however, Lockheed said he was moving to another site in Scotland, the Shetland Space Center, on the Shetland Islands, in the northernmost part of the country. Explaining the move, Lockheed said it ultimately has different technical requirements for the launch than Orbex. British officials at the time approved the move, saying it would be beneficial to have two complementary vertical launch sites in the UK. (Orbex says it’s still a launch date in 2022, but it seems questionable.)
Now Lockheed and ABL are locked up at the Shetland site and preparations for launch next year. For this first mission, ABL Space Systems’ RS1 rocket will launch a small orbital vehicle, built by MOOG, capable of carrying and deploying up to six 6U CubeSats. Two of the CubeSats launched by the maneuvering vehicle are the technology protesters of Lockheed Martin.