Recent news that Orbex, the Scottish space launch company headquartered in Forres, has gone into administration is a blow to the hopes of communities in the north of Scotland and to aspirations for the nation's technology sector. More than 150 highly skilled jobs are at risk, and a promising chapter in Moray’s economic development has […]

Local Perceptions of the SaxaVord Spaceport At the beginning of May 2025 Space Watch UK visited the Shetland island of Unst for a week to investigate opinions about the SaxaVord Spaceport, which is currently under construction in the  northern part of the island.  The aim of our visit was to speak to Unst residents about […]

“Whoever gets new technology into the hands of their Armed Forces the quickest will win”, writes Defence Secretary John Healey in his foreword to the government's new Strategic Defence Review (SDR).  This is presumably meant to be encouraging and reassuring to the public, but to anyone who knows the slightest thing about military technology it […]

New research by Space Watch UK reveals that nuclear weapons designers at the Ministry of Defence's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) are pushing to engage the civil space sector in designing new warhead systems. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – the government-owned enterprise responsible for research, design, manufacture, and maintenance of the UK's weapons of mass […]