Melness Crofters’ Estate says the decision to grant spaceflight company Orbex a 50-year lease to operate the UK’s first mainland vertical launch site in Sutherland is a chance to reverse “massive population decline” in the last few years.
The decision to grant Orbex the lease to operate the site and to build the £20m spaceport in partnership with NASA contractor Jacobs, will see 40 jobs created in community-owned land on the A’Mhoine peninsular in Sutherland.
Orbex, based in Forres has signed a lease with Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) for the spaceport, with the body, in turn, leasing the site from Melness Crofters Estate.
The sub-lease with Orbex will run for 50 years, with an option to extend for a further 25 years.
“We have seen massive population decline in the area over the past few years and our community is being starved of its lifeblood, young people,” said Melness Crofters’ Estate chairwoman Dorothy Pritchard.
“This is our way – perhaps a less-than-obvious way – of bringing new life back to our area. We are excited for the positive impact this will have on our community over the coming years.
“The Moine is a beautiful part of our estate that deserves to be respected, and we know it is in extremely good hands with Orbex managing the operation of the spaceport.”
Up to 12 rocket launches a year
Orbex will oversee construction and assume full operational management of the new facility. The 10-acre launch site will become the long-term home spaceport of Orbex and will see the launch of up to 12 orbital rockets per year, carrying satellites into low Earth orbit.
Orbex CEO Chris Larmour told The Press and Journal: “The Melness Crofters’ Estate have been incredibly supportive all the way through this process – their motivation really is the health of their community.
“They have seen a decline in their population and in the outflow of families with children in particular and a decline in resources to support their community, such as the availability of banks, schools, things like that.
“What they are looking for is a way to regenerate that community. There was this confluence of their desire to see their community grow and our search for a spaceport, originally HIE’s search for a spaceport.
“Those jobs for example, you can imagine many will be local and those people will bring partners and families and grow villages again.”
Those supply chain opportunities are expected to trigger £20m of private investment across a three-year period as the 40 technical and non-technical full-time equivalent jobs to support the operation and maintenance of the site kick in.
The jobs will span a number of areas including facilities and operational management, security, general administration and finance, marketing, stakeholder engagement and launch campaign-related roles.
Employment opportunities will be advertised locally when recruitment starts with Mr Larmour estimating the site to be operational around August or September next year given its relatively small size.
Jacobs will be prime construction contractor
Orbex has also held discussions with Jacobs to “make sure they can support the project locally.
Following its recent participation in Orbex’s Series C funding round, Jacobs will assume the role of prime construction contractor on behalf of Orbex.
Jacobs will collaborate with Orbex to provide spaceport operations support, operations consultancy and engineering services, drawing on its experience of managing and operating complex sites such as Cape Canaveral in the US.
Jacobs is NASA‘s largest services provider, delivering full aerospace capabilities including the Mars Perseverance Rover and the Artemis deep space human exploration programme.
The new Orbex Prime rocket is powered by a renewable biofuel, Futuria Liquid Gas, supplied by Calor. The company maintains the fuel allows the rocket to reduce carbon emissions compared to other similarly sized rockets being developed elsewhere around the world.
Prime is also a reusable rocket which has been engineered to leave zero debris on Earth and in orbit. Orbex has already received interest from commercial satellite manufacturers and has signed launch contracts with a number of customers.
Sutherland spaceport will bring economic benefits to North Highland and Moray”
SVP Jacobs Energy, Security and Technology, Karen Wiemelt
HIE notes the spaceport has the capacity “to generate around 250 jobs in our region, including 40 on site,” plus opportunities in manufacturing, supply chain, research and service provision.
For her part, SVP Jacobs Energy, Security and Technology, Karen Wiemelt said: “Sutherland Spaceport is an important development for the European space industry and will bring major economic and social benefits to North Highland and Moray, where our business has been active for decades in supporting operations, decommissioning and remediation at the Dounreay nuclear site.”
Another spaceport called SaxaVord is currently under construction in Shetland.
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