{"id":57823,"date":"2021-03-24T21:40:20","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T13:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/uks-orbex-and-skyrora-win-esa-boost-launch-contracts\/"},"modified":"2021-03-24T21:40:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T13:40:20","slug":"uks-orbex-and-skyrora-win-esa-boost-launch-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/uks-orbex-and-skyrora-win-esa-boost-launch-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Orbex and Skyrora Win ESA \u2018Boost\u2019 Launch Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>U.K. space companies<strong> Orbital Launch Express <\/strong>(Orbex) and <strong>Skyrora<\/strong> signed new commercial small satellite launch contracts with the <strong>European Space Agency <\/strong>(ESA) through its Boost! commercial space transportation services program.<\/p>\n<p>ESA awarded 7.45 million euros ($8.8 million) to Orbex, and 3 million euros ($3.5 million) to Skyrora. Both companies will begin launch services for ESA in 2022. ESA\u2019s Boost! provides co-funding, project guidance and access to testing facilities to entrepreneurs from EU member states who are developing new access options to space, in-orbit activities, or return to Earth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rocket Factory Augsburg AG<\/strong> (RFA), a startup backed by the German satellite manufacturer <strong>OHB<\/strong>, was the first company to join the Boost! program as ESA awarded 500,000 euros ($586,000) in support to the company last year.<\/p>\n<p>Orbex\u2019s Prime rocket is a two-stage microlauncher that offers rides to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) for payloads of up to 150 kg. It is powered by a 3D-printed engine that runs on liquid oxygen and sub-cooled bio-propane, a clean-burning renewable fuel. Orbex plans to launch Prime rockets from the Space Hub Sutherland in the A\u2019Mhoine peninsula in Scotland and is working on ways to make the rocket reusable.<\/p>\n<p>Orbex will partner with <strong>Deimos Engenharia<\/strong> in Portugal and<strong> Deimos Space UK<\/strong> to complete its contracted work for the ESA Boost! program.<\/p>\n<p>Skyrora will offer launch to Low Earth Sun-Synchronous and Polar Orbits for payloads of up to 315 kg on its Skyrora XL microlauncher. The rocket\u2019s propulsion system uses an an in-house developed rocket fuel made of high-test (hydrogen) peroxide and Ecosene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a growing impetus in European privately-led space transportation initiatives, like the ones from Orbex and Skyrora. This emerging dynamism is crucial in the long-term success of the European space sector,\u201d Luc\u00eda Linares, head of strategy and institutional launches in the ESA Directorate for Space Transportation, said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.K. space companies Orbital Launch Express (Orbex) and Skyrora signed new commercial small satellite launch contracts with the European Space Agency (ESA) through its Boost! commercial space transportation services program. ESA awarded 7.45 million euros ($8.8 million) to Orbex, and 3 million euros ($3.5 million) to Skyrora. Both companies will begin launch services for ESA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57824,"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-57823","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\/57823"}],"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=57823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}