New Orbex chief hints at Sutherland launch next year

“We are going to do a press event around that as we get closer to [launch]," Mr Chambers said. "It is getting close and there is a reason the spaceport construction is finishing at the end of the year, so you can kind of put two and two together on that.”

READ MORE: Orbex lands multi-million funding for rocket technology

A launch from Sutherland would likely come just months on the heels of lift off on the island of Unst, where the owners of the SaxaVord spaceport have what is to date the only licence granted for vertical rocket launches in the UK. This is governed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which issued the SaxaVord licence in December of last year.

A spokesman for SaxaVord has confirmed that Germany's Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) remains on course for its first launch from Shetland later this year, which will be some time after August.

Speaking on the eve of last month's announcement that Orbex has raised a further £16.7 million in follow-on funding to complete work on its Prime microlauncher and the Sutherland spaceport, Mr Chambers said the company is keen to get a first launch under its belt so it can then scale up to a planned 12 per year. 

About 50 metres of a six kilometre "floating" ring road is currently being laid per day by specialists in a bid to avoid damage to the underlying peatland. This will then provide access for construction of the launch pad.

An artists' impression of the Sutherland spaceport (Image: Orbex)

While consent for the preliminary work is in place, a second planning application to downsize and relocate some elements of the main launch facility has yet to receive approval. Mr Chambers said this "shouldn't be that complex" as the changes will reduce the spaceport's impact on the local environment.

The complicated matter of licencing, which involves hundreds of pages of documentation, must also be completed.

“We are progressing well," Mr Chambers said. "We have a really good relationship with the CAA, who are the UK licencing authority for this stuff, and we expect to get our licences awarded in time for when we are trying to do our first launch which is likely going to be, again, towards the end of this year when the spaceport is finished.”

Mr Chambers was appointed chief executive of Orbex in January, replacing interim CEO Martin Coates who held that post for six months following the surprise departure of Orbex co-founder Chris Larmour in May of last year.

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Mr Chambers joined the company with more than two decades of experience in building technology platforms for European start-ups such as classified ad site Gumtree and German website operator Qype, which was acquired by Yelp in 2012.

Two of the companies he previously worked for, Peakon and Podio, were backed by Danish early-stage investor Heartcore Capital. Podio was sold to Florida-headquartered Citrix Systems in 2012, while workplace experience platform Peakon was acquired in a $700 million deal by US giant Workday in 2021.

With that experience Mr Chambers was asked April 2022 to join the board of Heartcore, which holds a stake in Orbex, as a non-executive director. A few months later he decided to invest £200,000 of his own money into the company as part of a £40.4m Series C funding round.

"When the management change [at Orbex] came up in a Heartcore board meeting I said, ‘That would be an interesting job’, and one thing led to another and I ended up taking it, so here I am," he said.

Phillip Chambers (left) and chairman Miguel Belló Mora joined Orbex in January (Image: Orbex)

“Growing up when the space shuttle was big, I always wanted to be an astronaut and work in the space industry," he added. "But for whatever reason when I graduated, Airbus were not hiring computer graduates so I ended up doing a 20 year career in software.

"But I always really wanted to scratch that itch and get back into aerospace, and finally I have gotten to opportunity to do that, so it is exciting for me personally.”

Initially spearheaded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), operational management of the Sutherland spaceport was handed over to Orbex in November 2022. All rockets launched from the site will be the Prime vehicles made by the company at its facility in Forres, where it employs 150 of its 170 staff.

Mr Chambers believes there will be huge demand for the Prime service, as none of Europe's smaller private companies have yet achieved launch. 

READ MORE: Scotland's space industry prepares to go into orbit

“There are a number of European competitors – there are two in Germany, one in France, one in Spain – who are very credible and also working hard to get their microlaunchers off the ground," he said.

"Being early is important, but it is also important to have a reliable vehicle. We want to launch as soon as we can but we are also working hard to make sure that first launch is a success.”

Orbex has two active patents in a number of European countries and the United States covering various parts of its rocket technology. This is powered by a renewable biofuel that allows the vehicle to significantly reduce carbon emissions compared to other similarly-sized rockets.

Mr Chambers said this is just one of several examples of the groundbreaking work being undertaken by the company.

"It’s what’s called a coaxial tank, which is kind of like Russian doll where we have helium encased by propane encased by liquid oxygen," he explains. "Nobody has ever built one of those in the world, so we are building the first one here in Forres, and we have got it up running.”