{"id":47584,"date":"2026-02-11T19:43:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/orbex-appoints-administrators-uk-launch-market-suffers-another-blow\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:43:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:43:06","slug":"orbex-appoints-administrators-uk-launch-market-suffers-another-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/orbex-appoints-administrators-uk-launch-market-suffers-another-blow\/","title":{"rendered":"Orbex Appoints Administrators \u2014 UK Launch Market Suffers Another Blow"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><em>Update \u2014 U.K. rocket company Skyrora is considering purchasing Orbex assets. The company said in a Feb. 12 statement it may invest up to 10 million pounds ($13.7 million) to acquire \u201cselect Orbex assets, including the Sutherland Spaceport,\u201d to ensure the technology and IP stays under U.K. ownership.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The U.K. launch industry has suffered another devastating blow with the news that <strong>Orbex<\/strong> is going to have to appoint administrators after fundraising and merger and acquisition opportunities concluded unsuccessfully. The company will continue trading while all options for the future of the company are explored, including potential sale of all or parts of its business or assets. The company announced the news, Feb. 11.<\/p>\n<p>The funding required for Orbex to remain a viable business was sought from a variety of public and private investors during its Series D funding round, which has ultimately failed. Several merger and acquisition opportunities have also been explored, but did not work out.<\/p>\n<p>The first test launches of Orbex\u2019s microlauncher Prime were due to take place later this year. Orbex already has commercial launch commitments from several satellite customers for Prime, which is a low-carbon microlauncher.<\/p>\n<p>The U.K. launch market has been beset with difficulties as the U.K. tries to develop its space economy and a viable location for launching rockets. Around three years ago, Virgin Orbit\u2019s historic first mission from Cornwall in the U.K. failed to reach an orbit in a story that made news well beyond the space industry. This led Virgin Orbit into a death spiral and not long after filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and then ceased operations soon after.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDisappointing doesn\u2019t come close to describing how we feel about this moment. We have been successfully developing a sustainable, world-class sovereign space launch capability for the U.K. and were on the cusp of our first test flights later this year. What is most disappointing is that we have brought hundreds of skilled jobs to Scotland; we have been at the vanguard of the U.K.\u2019s space ambitions; we have led the way in driving good news about the U.K.\u2019s space sector. Yet all of this progress now risks being undone \u2013 and it is real people who will feel the consequences,\u201d Phil Chambers, CEO of Orbex, said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update \u2014 U.K. rocket company Skyrora is considering purchasing Orbex assets. The company said in a Feb. 12 statement it may invest up to 10 million pounds ($13.7 million) to acquire \u201cselect Orbex assets, including the Sutherland Spaceport,\u201d to ensure the technology and IP stays under U.K. ownership.&nbsp; The U.K. launch industry has suffered another [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}