'We don't need two vertical launch spaceports': SaxaVord Spaceport boss questions need for Sutherland Spaceport
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A SENIOR figure in the space industry has questioned the need for two spaceports in the far north of Scotland.
Vertical rocket launches are due to start this year from both Sutherland Spaceport on the A’Mhoine peninsula and SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst, Shetland.
But the deputy chief executive and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport told a parliamentary committee this week that he did not think that two such facilities were required.
Scott Hammond said: "We have got to get away from this view that we have to have spaceports everywhere. I just do not think that is necessary.... I see no need for this dissipation of resources."
His views were contradicted by Martin Coates, who has just stepped down as interim chief executive but remains a director of Orbex, the aerospace company responsible for developing and operating Sutherland Spaceport.
The two men spoke at the Scottish Affairs Committee’s third public evidence session on Scotland’s space sector, held on Monday.
The committee heard that Sutherland Spaceport has planning consent for 12 rocket launches a year while SaxaVord Spaceport has permission for 30.
SaxaVord, which was granted a licence for orbital launches by the Civil Aviation Authority at the end of last year, is expected to become operational before Sutherland Spaceport.
Committee member Moray MP Douglas Ross asked: “Is there enough business to have two spaceports not just in Scotland but in the Highlands, in the far north of Scotland?
Mr Hammond responded: “Do we need two vertical launch spaceports? No we do not. We have 30 launches a year with launches that can do up to 1500kg; that is 45 tonnes we can put up into space - maybe 300 satellites a year.
We can accommodate the demand up in SaxaVord. I don’t see that we need to have these extra spaceports…
“We have got to get away from this 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 of those 14 only three actually did any launches last year.
“There is this great desire to spread the love but you achieve nothing, so I think we only need the SaxaVord Spaceport, certainly for the next decade. I see no need for this sort of dissipation of resources.
However Mr Coates told the committee that the two spaceports were not in competition and that both were needed.
“I can use all the capacity we have got in Sutherland for my own business,” he said. “I do not need to have a secondary operator on that site so we are not putting it out as a commercial offer in the way that SaxaVord is. So, it is a completely different business model.
“The current capacity we have permission for is not sufficient for our plans and we are going to be launching elsewhere relatively soon.
“We may well want to be a customer of SaxaVord in the future, who knows?
“There is plenty of demand and we see it with a building pipeline of enquiries. Almost every week a new company talks to us about potential launch opportunities."
David Oxley, director of strategic projects at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who also gave evidence to the committee, said: “Back in 2021, HIE did a market study with some well-known market analysis of the space sector and at that point in time the market analysis indicated that accessible launches from the UK over that next decade were approaching 1000 potential launches.
“So even if Scott goes to 30 launches a year and Martin goes to 12 launches a year, there is plenty of capacity out there. And that was Feb 2021 when a lot of companies were launching from Kazakhstan and Russia. They are obviously not doing that now and are not going to be dong that any time in the future.
“The market for launches in Western Europe has grown even more than when we did that report three years ago.
Do we need more than one spaceport? Yes I think we do. Because there is a lot of market to go at and the UK and Scotland should be trying to capture as much of it as possible."
MP Mr Ross said : "We will certainly keep an eye on that going forward."
