The first stage of the company’s RS1 rocket after completion of welding.
ABL Space
Lockheed Martin selected Los Angeles-based rocket builder ABL Space to launch a mission from Scotland in two years, the defense contractor announced Monday.
The companies said the launch, scheduled for 2022, would be the UK’s first satellite launch and, more generally, the first from European territory. The mission comes through a grant from the UK Space Agency’s “Pathfinder Launch” program, with the launch of the rocket from the Scottish island of Unst to the Shetland Islands.
“We want the UK to be the first in Europe to launch small satellites into orbit, attracting innovative companies from around the world, accelerating the development of new technologies and creating hundreds of highly skilled jobs across the UK,” The agency’s deputy general manager, Ian Annett, said in a statement.
Lockheed Martin’s venture capital group is ABL Space, which is working on its first launch from California in the first half of this year. ABL is building small rockets, which in size fit between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the small Rocket Lab launcher on the market, with the company contributing nearly $ 100 million in venture capital and contract awards before the concession of the United Kingdom.
The ABL RS1 rocket measures 88 feet in height and is designed to launch up to 1,350 kilograms (or nearly 1½ tons) of payload into low Earth orbit, at a cost of $ 12 million per launch. ABL’s position at the center of the commercial launch market places it in competition with other companies such as Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace. Virgin Orbit has also announced plans to launch a mission from a Cornwall, England airport as early as 2022.
A second stage RS1 fully integrated into the launch of tests at the Edwards Air Force Base in 2020.
ABL Space
The launch of RS1 from Scotland will carry a UK-based MOOG-built spacecraft, which will deploy six small satellites, two of which will be technology demonstrations built by Lockheed Martin.
“We have selected ABL Space Systems for the launch of the UK Pathfinder to take advantage of the flexibility of ABL’s integrated GSO launch system – and the RS1 rocket – which will allow us to quickly lift our new site,” said Randy DeRosa, director of Lockheed Martin program, UK, Pathfinder Launch. he said in a statement. “The ABL system is relatively easy, fast and cost effective to deploy, with fantastic performance, an important capability for many of our future customers.”
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