The co-founder and former chief executive of Scottish-based rocket manufacturer Orbex has joined two of his erstwhile employees on the board of directors at their start-up space company.
Edinburgh-based Aurora Avionics, set up last year by former Orbex engineers Rowland Fraser and Oren Smith-Carpenter, has appointed Chris Larmour as a non-executive director. Prior to his surprise departure in May 2023 Mr Larmour raised approximately $100 million (£76.5m) in venture capital and public funding for Orbex, which now employs more than 200 people.
"Chris brings a huge amount of experience and a broad network of connections that will help Aurora be commercially successful, assisting us in getting to the next level," Mr Smith-Carpenter said. "His advice and backing is a significant boost for us as we develop our technology and proposition."
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Earlier this year Aurora secured £320,000 in backing for further development of its “off the shelf” electronic navigation system to help bring down the cost of getting rockets to their intended destination. The fundraising was supported by Scottish Enterprise and the Gabriel group of angel investors.
The company was also recently selected for Scottish Enterprise's High Growth Ventures cluster, and is co-located with the European Space Agency (ESA) at the Higgs Innovation Centre in Edinburgh.
"I'm delighted to have been asked to join the board at Aurora and to work with Oren, Rowland and their highly experienced chair Richard Cooper," Mr Larmour said.
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"I know the founders very well. They are building a company to provide high reliability avionics for both small launch vehicles and a wide range of other applications that operate in extreme environments."
Aurora will be Mr Larmour’s first advisory role following his departure from Orbex, and is said to signal the opportunity which Aurora expects to capture within the rapidly growing control subsystems market.
“The exponential growth in demand for putting satellites into space is creating a vast market for launch providers, with many hoping to send rockets into space in the coming months and years," Mr Smith-Carpenter said. "Avionics systems qualified for the harsh space environment presents a costly barrier to entry for rocket firms, with high research and design costs."
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