https://www.thestreet.com/technology/sir-richard-bransons-virgin-orbit-collapses

Noel

whats happens now to the place in Cornwall they wanted to use as a spaceport place ?   

Edited April 2, 20233 yr by fluffyflops

After only ONE failed flight due to a dislodged fuel filter. No other issues.  🙄 Couldn't get the funding. Which seems weird for something with so much potential. Operations are "paused" though, so there's hope for the future perhaps, if they can get the fundin

 

2 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

whats happens now to the place in Cornwall they wanted to use as a spaceport place ?   

 

They are working with other space flight firms. Spaceport Cornwall was never just about Virgin Orbit. Its a facility that other operators can use. 

• In March we will open our brand new Space Systems Operations Facility (SSOF).  The SSOF will have labs, collaboration space, office space and hotdesking for the space industry. It is almost full, and we haven’t even completed it yet! Space and satellite companies are growing into the site and this is where so much value to Cornwall, and the UK will come. 
• We have announced our partnership with Sierra Space and we will be working on a Concept of Operations with them this year. Now that we have proven our capability, we also have several other launch operators in the pipeline.

https://spaceportcornwall.com/

 

Sierra Space has an agreement with Spaceport Cornwall, for the Dream Chaser space plane. Now well under construction.

https://www.sierraspace.com/space-transportation/dream-chaser-spaceplane/

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 20233 yr by martin-w

3 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

whats happens now to the place in Cornwall they wanted to use as a spaceport place ?   

Good question. It’s received £10m of Cornwall Council’s very precious cash and whatever UK govt has handed it in the past to generate good news stories.

However, by putting all its eggs in the Virgin Orbit basket it’s now up the Swanny.

Without any prospect of ‘launches’ taking place in the remotely visible future the whole reason for it’s continued public funding will be called into question.

The relentlessly optimistic press releases from the management basically refer to the amount of business park space available on what is essentially an ex-WW2 and Cold War anti-submarine airfield. 

Newquay airport itself only exists due to subsidy from Cornwall Council and the EU regional development fund. Obviously, EU funding has now finished and Cornwall council - like all local government - is under huge spending pressure.

Newquay airport is in competition with Exeter airport and both are competing with Bristol for a limited amount of passengers. The fact is south west England simply doesn’t have the population to support two commercial airports.

 

"Couldn't get the funding"

Where have we heard that before? Ah, yes.....just about every other sector of manufacturing in the United Kingdom over the past fifty years. We prefer to out source everything to foreign countries, and let them reap the rewards

19 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

It’s received £10m of Cornwall Council’s very precious cash and whatever UK govt has handed it in the past to generate good news stories.

I suspected that govt. funding was involved, but didn't want to say anything as I don't know much about the Cornwall Spaceport.

This is the problem with govt. "investments": they're frequently bad investments with zero or negative returns.  I wonder if the general public will ever wake up to this reality.

Having said all that, I support govt. funding of space technology, but one has to realize that it will likely not produce any practical, meaningful benefits for many years, if ever.

Dave

27 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

"Couldn't get the funding"

Where have we heard that before? Ah, yes.....just about every other sector of manufacturing in the United Kingdom over the past fifty years. We prefer to out source everything to foreign countries, and let them reap the rewards

Virgin Orbit is based in California where it’s manufacturing facility is based.

Funding for Virgin Orbit has always been a problem. It’s Nasdaq launch two years ago raised $200m rather than the $400m they were looking for.

The business burns through some $10m a month in operating expenses. 
It’s a pity as - on paper - it’s a great idea for light weight satellite launch but they needed to make commercial launches twice a month.

They just couldn’t get it all up and running before the cash in hand ran out.

At the end of the day they couldn’t find anyone to inject new capital into the company because the market didn’t have confidence in the management, not the product.

Edited April 2, 20233 yr by DD_Arthur

15 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

This is the problem with govt. "investments": they're frequently bad investments with zero or negative returns.  I wonder if the general public will ever wake up to this reality.

Having said all that, I support govt. funding of space technology, but one has to realize that it will likely not produce any practical, meaningful benefits for many years, if ever.

Only *central (/federal)* rather than local government should be 'investing' in nationally significant projects like this. Even then, government's only involvement should be improving the conditions to make private investment more attractive (limited grants and legislative changes), as well as infrastructure improvements in the surrounding area for all to benefit.

We, in the UK, have an appalling track record of public money investments in specific sectors and individual businesses considered 'nationally important' (just see British Volt for another recent example). It's time we stopped doing the same thing over and over, yer expecting a different result.

 

53 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

It’s received £10m of Cornwall Council’s very precious cash and whatever UK govt has handed it in the past to generate good news stories.

However, by putting all its eggs in the Virgin Orbit basket it’s now up the Swanny.

As a fully paid-up believer in capitalism, this rankles.

If a privately-funded project is unsuccessful, shareholders and financial lenders lose out (risk vs. reward concept) rather than Doris, Betty and John whose local government authority had to find £10m from additional revenue sources or cut local services provision.

There's a very good physics-based rationale why space launches occur nearer the equator. There's also millions of good reasons (£/€/$) why piggy-back launches haven't taken off (deliberate pun) commercially. The market will determine what is and isn't viable.

3 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

However, by putting all its eggs in the Virgin Orbit basket it’s now up the Swanny.

 

They didn't do that. They have other customers. see my post. It was never just about Virgin. 

Mel Thorpe and her team were wise enough to build an entire space cluster around the spaceport that had nothing to do with Virgin Orbit. The opportunities and business at the spaceport continue to grow. 

Edited April 2, 20233 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

 

They didn't do that. They have other customers. see my post. It was never just about Virgin. 

They have no other launch customers. 
The press release you posted is just a bit of waffle to try and justify their existence.

The only thing the ‘space centre’ had going for it was the very long, underused runway built for the USAF KC135 tanker wing based there in the Cold War.

The Dream Chaser Spaceplane ‘agreement’ means that sometime, in the distant future, if the Dream Chaser actually flies it’ll have the option to make an emergency landing in Cornwall if they can’t make it back to Nellis.

For the rest of it; the Cornwall Spaceport is an educational facility where primary school kids can look at assorted bits of space junk and video screens and what is essentially a space themed trading estate.

Thats it.

The UK does have a very vibrant, successful and expanding satellite and component manufacturing industry. It’s based in the UK’s hi-tech manufacturing triangle running from Oxfordshire - Cambridgeshire up into the Midlands….. and Glasgow is a major centre too.

Thats all a long, long way from the north Cornwall coast.

Without the prospect of launch business there’s just no reason to be there.

17 hours ago, birdguy said:

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/sir-richard-bransons-virgin-orbit-collapses

 

Quote

 

The British billionaire's rocket company is ceasing its operations. Its stock has fallen by more than 89% this year.

• LUC OLINGA
• APR 1, 2023 10:03 AM EDT

 

• I note the date of this "article" and wonder if this is for real, or simply a not-so-funny April Fools joke...
   

4 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Without the prospect of launch business there’s just no reason to be there.

Let's see if the Sutherland Spaceport and the Shetland Space Centre can do any better.

1 hour ago, dmwalker said:

Let's see if the Sutherland Spaceport and the Shetland Space Centre can do any better.

Yeah, similar situations; local councils in rural extremities trying to attract job creating investment.

In the case of the two above they’re both chasing a potential Lockheed-Martin launch.

The Sutherland Spaceport is a prime example of how to waste public money on ludicrous schemes that merely generate meetings and expense claims.

Shetland Space Centre is likely to win over just about anything else as they’re backed by Shetland’s North Sea oil money fund and the area already has a considerable engineering infrastructure to work with.

Once again though, they’ve essentially tied themselves to one company. However, unlike Cornwall’s Spaceport, these two sites actually have permission to launch rockets.

 

 

32 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Shetland Space Centre is likely to win over just about anything else as they’re backed by Shetland’s North Sea oil money fund and the area already has a considerable engineering infrastructure to work with.

Plus a distillery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxa_Vord_distillery 

and a brewery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_Brewery 

So, not being on the mainland isn't considered a significant disadvantage.

4 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Plus a distillery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxa_Vord_distillery 

and a brewery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_Brewery 

So, they produce rocket fuel on-site.  Good for them.  That's a plus.

Noel