Deep contradictions in Scottish Government policies on the development of spaceports have been exposed as plans to develop a launch site in Sutherland floundered just days after construction work at a second proposed site in the Western Isles commenced.

In a surprise announcement, rocket launch company Orbex has revealed that it has decided to "pause" construction of the Sutherland Spaceport, located on the A' Mhòine peninsula on the north coast of Scotland.  Orbex has said it will now focus its operations exclusively on developing space rockets, which it now plans to launch from the rival SaxaVord Spaceport at Unst in the Shetland Islands.  Justifying its decision, the company said that “the UK’s space industry is developing very quickly and requires the associated economies of scale and synergies to maintain its competitiveness for launch services from Europe."

Less than a week beforehand Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), the development agency for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland which is promoting the Sutherland spaceport, announced that construction had started on another launch site which it is also funding – Spaceport 1 on the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

The Sutherland Spaceport saga

Permission to build and operate the Sutherland Spaceport was originally granted in 2020 to HIE, which intended to lease operation of the site to a commercial contractor.  In 2022 the site was leased to Orbex, who had been involved in the project as a potential launch customer.  Another early partner in Sutherland Spaceport, Lockheed Martin, pulled out of the project in October 2020 after concluding that the SaxaVord Spaceport site would be more suited to its plans.

Orbex's sudden announcement has come as a shock to local communities and to other partners in the project.  Only six weeks earlier Orbex submitted amended plans for construction work at the spaceport to Highland Council for approval, and local newspapers reported that the company had been advertising for contractors just days beforehand.  Local MP Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat) representing the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency pointed out that the Orbex announcement will be "incredibly disappointing for the communities on the north coast - including much of Caithness - as high-quality future employment is the only way to halt and reverse the age-old spectre of depopulation in the Highlands".

HIE described the Orbex announcement as “an unexpected change of direction” and said that it was “deeply disappointed at this turn of events”, admitting that it was “less clear” what impact Orbex’s decision will have on communities in Sutherland.  According to HIE, at least £14.5 million of public money has been awarded to the Sutherland Spaceport project to date, with more than £9 million coming from HIE and the Scottish Government, a further £3 million from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and £2.55 million from the UK Space Agency.  No announcement has been made regarding whether any of this funding will be recovered.

Despite expressions of regret from supporters of the Sutherland project, Orbex's decision to put the scheme on hold should come as no great surprise.  The space sector is a high risk industry, requiring high up front costs from investors in the sector.  There is already a global overcapacity in space launch sites when compared to demand, meaning that the economic viability of new developments will always be a challenge.  A pilot study on the economic viability of commercial spaceports conducted  in the United States concluded that whilst a spaceport can bring economic benefits to a region, it requires significant and sustained investments of public funding in an uncertain and volatile market.  Undeterred by such hazards, the UK Space Agency is currently proposing the development of seven spaceports in the UK, five of which are planned for Scotland.  These spaceports will be competing not only against each other, but against spaceports under development elsewhere in Europe.

Even voices from the space industry have questioned the need for multiple spaceports in Scotland.  In January 2024 Scott Hammond, representing SaxaVord Spaceport, gave evidence to the UK Parliament's Scottish Affairs Committee warning of over-capacity in the sector and arguing that two vertical launch spaceports were not needed in Scotland's far north.  Hammond told the committee that “We have got to get away from the view that we have to have spaceports everywhere. I just do not think you need that. America has about 40 spaceports, and of those only 14 are actually licensed, and last year only three of those 14 actually did any launches.”

Commercial pressure has forced other spaceports around the world to become reliant on custom from the military.  In New Zealand the Rocket Lab spaceport, which its founder said in 2008 would not undertake military work, has since been mostly used for military satellite launches, including launches of US spy satellites.  The spaceport at Kodiak in Alaska was proposed as a location to launch commercial satellites from a northern polar trajectory, but over the last 20 years launches that have taken place from Kodiak have been mainly military or US government funded.  Alexandra Stickings, a space policy analyst at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, has stated that the SaxaVord and Sutherland spaceports would be likely to need military contracts to be viable, and that there would be pressure on the Ministry of Defence to support them for its satellite launches even if the resulting cost was more than other providers.

Scotland's five spaceport proposals

As well as Sutherland Spaceport there are currently four other proposed spaceports planned for Scotland: SavaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands; Spaceport 1 in the Outer Hebrides; the Macrihanish Spaceport Cluster near Campbelltown in Argyll, and Prestwick Spaceport in Ayrshire.

At the Spaceport 1 site contractors have recently been appointed by the project lead, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (CnES - Council of the Western Isles) to construct transport infrastructure, install broadband cables, and assess future options for heritage assets on the site.  Planning permission was granted in 2023 and as with the Sutherland Spaceport, CnES intends to appoint a private sector operator to build and run the spaceport.  CnES has partnered with military contractor QinetiQ and space industry companies Rhea Group and Commercial Space Technologies to take the project forward.  The project is controversial, and Spaceport 1 has met with considerable local opposition, with more than 1,000 people signing a petition objecting to the proposal and its predicted impacts on the environment, local communities, and fishing livelihoods.

The project is moving forward under the auspices of the Scottish and UK Government funded Islands Growth Deal Programme, an economic development programme for the Scottish islands.

CnES has been awarded funding of £947k from HIE towards the £2.6m cost of this first stage of the project and has committed a further £675k from its own budget.  CnES has already bought the spaceport development site at Scolpaig Farm for £1m, and Freedom of Information requests made by local campaign group Friends of Scolpaig /Caraidean Sgolpaig suggest that CnES has spent at least £3.15m on the project to date.  So far there appears to have been no private sector investment in the project.

The proposed spaceports at the former Machrihanish air base and Glasgow Prestwick Airport would be horizontal launch sites, with space rockets launched from under the wings of aircraft flying from the spaceports.  As yet the Machrihanish proposal has not moved beyond the feasibility study stage.

In September 2024 South Ayrshire Council announced that the Prestwick Spaceport project would no longer be considered as part of the Ayrshire Growth Deal funding programme after the Daily Record newspaper reported that the launch company which was a partner in the project had missed targets, owned no aircraft, and had no employees.

This leaves SaxaVord spaceport, which, having been driven forward aggressively by private sector investors, currently appears to be the most viable of Scotland's spaceports.  SaxaVord has entered into contracts with a number of launch companies and hopes to launch its first rocket in 2025.  The space sector seems to have gradually come to see SaxaVord as a sensible location for vertical launches into low earth orbit from the UK, especially as the Civil Aviation Authority has now issued the spaceport and range licences needed before a launch can take place from SaxaVord.  The site is intended to have three launch pads, compared with one at Sutherland, allowing it to operate at a higher launch tempo and providing spare capacity if one of the pads has to be taken out of commission, for example as the result of an accident.

Orbex has said that it intends to retain its lease to build and operate its own spaceport at Sutherland in order to give it flexibility to increase launch capacity in the future, although this decision will be kept under “continuous review”.  If, as Orbex and others in the UK space sector must hope, the sector grows as they wish, work on the mothballed Sutherland site would eventually resume in years ahead as increased demand for launch capacity tilts the economics of the project into the black.

Learning lessons

Lessons can and should be learnt from the Sutherland Spaceport saga.  John Swinney, Scotland's First Minister, has said he will look into whether development at Sutherland can continue, or if not, whether investment in the project can be recouped, but this is not enough.  A fundamental review of the policies and mechanisms through which the Scottish government funds the space sector is needed.

The approach currently taken by the Scottish Government and the UK Space Agency to funding spaceport development has a number of significant flaws.  Firstly, it is based on the principle that government should sow its seeds widely by encouraging a number of start-ups at the same time, but then allowing the market to select which sites succeed and which sites fall by the wayside.  This approach leads to public money being wasted on unviable projects and lets down communities who are looking to development agencies to help them regenerate.  It is unfair and unacceptable, and a more considered approach is needed, based around robust forward planning, careful site selection, and a staged approach aimed at bringing projects onstream when the time is right.

A significant part of the problem is the hype surrounding the space sector, which often appears to be seen as a 'magic bullet' for economic development by politicians and development agencies.  A debate on the space sector in the Scottish Parliament in April 2023 consisted largely of gushing tributes and inflated claims about the sector rather than critical analysis or cool realistic judgements.  Politicians and government policy makers are rarely experts on science and technology, and are easily seduced by technology sector and space industry public relations campaigns.  Space stories are attractive to the news media, too, which contributes to the problem by unchallengingly regurgitating industry promotion of space projects, raising expectations by presenting speculative concepts as concrete plans.  A far more robust approach to scrutiny of the space sector is required from Parliamentarians and journalists in their role of holding power to account.

Policy making in the field has been captured by industry, and representatives of the space sector have driven the preparation of key plans which guide the Scottish Government's approach to space.  The 'Strategy for Space in Scotland', published in 2021, was produced by AstroAgency, which describes itself as a “space marketing agency helping to create the space sector of tomorrow”, on behalf of industry group Space Scotland, the Scottish Space Academic Forum, and the Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies.  The Scotland International Space Advisory Committee (SISAC), set up in 2023 to develop strategic recommendations and advocate for a space-based economy, consists entirely of representatives from arms companies, the space sector, and associated businesses.  When such interests are pushing forward national policy it should be no surprise that Scotland's approach to space has basically been to develop an industry wish-list of projects for the public purse to fund.

The profusion of different agencies involved in the space sector – central and devolved government, non-departmental bodies such as HIE, regional growth deal programmes, and local authorities – has also contributed to the excess of spaceport development proposals.  Each agency wants to take forward its own projects, with limited communication or co-ordination between different interest groups who find themselves in competition with each other.  These bodies are often not directly accountable to the public, with decisions made in opaque and unclear ways, which adds to the risk that proposals may turn out to be over-elaborate and high cost.

Many of these issues could be tackled by giving local communities and critical voices a meaningful say in decision making on large infrastructure projects and development programmes.  This can help in injecting an element of realism, and also, by giving affected communities a stake in projects which will affect them, help local people to understand the various risks arising from each project, including the risks of a project failing.

If the First Minister is serious about reaping economic benefits from the space sector while ensuring that development funding from the public purse is used effectively and responsibly, here are three suggestions for him to consider which would help to meet those aims.

• Develop a national siting policy for spaceports in Scotland based on realistic market demand assessments to ensure that spaceport development is targeted only on viable and appropriate locations.

• Conduct an audit of the sum of money spent directly and indirectly by the Scottish Government on spaceport development to date and the value for money achieved by this expenditure.  Invite the Scottish Parliament to establish a committee to investigate the effectiveness of past policy on spaceport development and recommend a robust approach for the future to ensure money is spent on job creation and community development, rather than handouts to space companies and public relations consultancies.

• Prepare a mandatory community engagement protocol for spaceport and other major infrastructure development projects which ensures that the views of the full range of voices are heard and, rather than merely soliciting opinion on a proposal which is a fait accompli, allows local communities to shape the project and have the final say on whether or not it goes ahead.

Space Watch UK has written to Scotland's First Minister about the issues raised in this article.  You can read the letter here:

SWUK Letter to First Minister - Dec 2024