ABL Space Systems
Lockheed Martin says it selected ABL Space Systems, based in the United States, to launch the UK’s first orbital rocket – a mission due to take place in Scotland in 2022.
The launch is part of an agreement between the UK government and Lockheed to foster an industry for launching small commercial satellites in the country. No rockets have been launched into orbit from the UK’s ground, but now the government is trying to become a launch center for Europe and a small satellite manufacturer.
In choosing ABL Space, Lockheed chose a company that has not yet launched a rocket, although its RS1 vehicle is due to make its debut during the second quarter of this year. Lockheed is an investor in ABL Space in El Segundo, California, and believes it is on the right track to success.
“The ABL system is relatively easy, fast and economical to deploy, with fantastic performance, an important feature for many of our future customers,” said Randy DeRosa, program manager at Lockheed Martin for the UK’s Pathfinder launch program. company.
ABL is developing an ability to send and fire to its RS1 rocket, which is expected to have a lifting capacity of 1.2 tonnes to Earth’s low orbit. The goal is to box the rocket in some cargo containers, send it to a launch site, assemble it and put it into orbit. The company’s base price for a launch is $ 12 million.
Although ABL Space has operated extensively under the radar for the past three years, it appears to be well capitalized and has been hiring well. Last summer, for example, ABL revealed that it had received two contracts from the US Air Force for $ 44.5 million and secured $ 49 million in new private financing. An ABL official said that the UK launch is roughly the fifth mission in its current manifest and that ABL hopes to establish a regular launch cadence from the Shetland Space Center, allowing it to better serve the European satellite market.
The UK Space Agency announced its domestic launch initiative in July 2018. At the time, it awarded Lockheed Martin $ 31 million to develop and demonstrate a vertical launch site in Sutherland, Scotland. In addition, $ 7 million was awarded to a company based in Great Britain, Orbex, which is developing its own rocket. It was then thought that a launch company chosen by Lockheed, as well as Orbex, would launch from the Sutherland site in the Scottish mountains.
However, last fall, Lockheed said it was moving to another location in Scotland, the Shetland Space Center in the Shetland Islands, in the far north of the country. In explaining the change, Lockheed said it ended up having different technical requirements for the launch of Orbex. British authorities approved the move at the time, saying it would be beneficial to have two complementary vertical launch sites in the UK. (Orbex says it still targets a 2022 release date as well, but that seems questionable.)
Now Lockheed and ABL are stuck on the Shetland website and in preparation for a launch next year. For this first mission, ABL Space Systems’ RS1 rocket will launch a small orbital maneuver vehicle, built by MOOG, which is capable of transporting and deploying up to six CubeSats 6U. Two of the CubeSats launched by the maneuvering vehicle will demonstrate Lockheed Martin’s technology.