Wait for Spaceport Cornwall licences a concern to committee

A government committee is expressing concerns over the time it is taking to issue licences for the first launch of satellites into space from UK soil.

The Virgin Orbit plane and rocket arrived at Cornwall Airport Newquay in October ahead of the mission.

The Science and Technology Select Committee said it was "disappointed" the launch had not yet happened.

UK space regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it "continues to work proactively with all parties".

The committee published a report into UK space strategy and UK satellite infrastructure on Friday.

Included within the report, it said: "We are disappointed that a launch from the UK has not yet been achieved, especially as we were assured on several occasions that the first horizontal launch would take place in summer 2022."

It added: "We are concerned that the delay in achieving the first UK launch is partly due to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) being unable to process licence applications in a timely manner."

The CAA was appointed as the UK's space regulator in 2021.

It expects decisions on licences to take between six and 12 months for spaceports and nine and 18 months for launch operators from the point an application is received.

In November 2021, the head of Spaceport Cornwall, Melissa Thorpe, told the committee it had submitted its application a few weeks earlier.

It is not known when Virgin Orbit applied for a licence for its rocket, called LauncherOne.

Each of the nine satellites on-board also requires licences, although the CAA has issued satellite licences since 1986.

A CAA spokesperson said: "We are assessing the evidence supporting a range of space industry licence applications to determine if they meet the statutory requirements for granting space licences for UK launch, which include safety, security and the environment.

"We're committed to helping drive forward a UK space sector and continue to work proactively with all parties.

"As part of this, it is important we do so with a view to prioritising public safety, and be satisfied that steps being taken by operators manage safety risks to as low as reasonably practicable."

On Wednesday Ms Thorpe said "we are very close".

She said: "We always kind of knew the launch window was going to open at the end of October, and we always planned to have the launch in November which we are working towards really hard.

"Everything is taking as long as it needs to to make sure that first launch is safe.

"But we are definitely not in any sort of panic mode at all, we are just meticulously working towards a launch in honestly a couple of weeks time."

No launch date has been set.

Cornwall Council and Spaceport Cornwall said in a joint statement they were "confident that the appropriate licences will be in place shortly".

Their statement added: "We continue to work with the CAA, Virgin Orbit and UK Space Agency to ensure that launch is safe and we look forward to working with them further over the coming weeks to achieve the first UK launch."

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