back to article UK space faces cash freeze unless watchdogs step up

Regulatory delays – rather than technical failures – are set to threaten the UK commercial space launch industry, a committee of MPs heard yesterday, as the industry described a "toxic" environment for investment. The result of "jarring" interactions with Blighty's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was that it cost more to …

  1. ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo Silver badge
    Holmes

    "So it costs us more to license our satellite launch than it did to launch it."

    Some of those people must charge an astronomical rate?

    Or, they charged extra for the grievance of needing to go through a laborious email exchange rather than re-submitting their application?

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      It is not one or two individuals

      Each month of delay is salary for the entire workforce plus the cost of maintaining idle manufacturing and launch infrastructure. RocketLab charge $7.5M for 200kg to SSO. A startup without RocketLab's reliability record is not going to sell at that price. It would not take many months to exceed the launch cost of one small satellite in a ride share.

      In real life, small rockets are a tiny niche. The most common launches are for constellations where you need to put a pile of satellites on a big rocket to divide the price down. The next step down are the ride shares to sun synchronous orbit (SSO). SpaceX launch two or three per year carrying over 100 satellites at a price selected to take launches away from every small rocket provider. There are national launches eg China will only launch on a Chinese rocket, India will only launch on an Indian rocket. All of NASA and DoD will go on US rockets. The bigger satellites going to GTO will take a Falcon 9 (or the DoD will pay through the nose to keep ULA in business). There are the occasional oddities that can ride share with Starlink. That pretty much leaves a dozen or so small satellites per year going to an unusual orbit that cannot take a ride share to SSO.

      Launch companies with a hope of staying in business are developing a medium sized reusable constellation launcher. Even that has a big risk: Starship's target launch price is what you would currently pay for a RocketLab Electron (we are years from Starship launch cost going under its target price). 1000x the payload mass for the same price is going to remove the mass constraint that contributes much of the cost of a satellite. When a 'small' satellite has a mass 1000kg to eliminate the cost of mass optimisation small launch vehicles will only be used for a couple of national prestige launches per year.

      I am not going to take launch license issues that seriously until I see a business plan that will compete in the foreseeable future. These days it is rare to find one that can compete in the current market. I think Virgin Orbit (not to be confused with Virgin Galactic) is on a path through bankruptcy intended separate the assets and IP from existing debt.

      If the UK (or the EU) wanted a competitive launch industry it would have to fund a pile of small launch payloads to be launched on UK (EU) rockets just like NASA and the DoD do in the US.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: It is not one or two individuals

        It's estimated that the costs of having Hubble in storage for the years after the Challenger Oopsie was more than the cost of building it

    2. Al fazed
      Facepalm

      The article clearly pointed to the bottleneck, they can only submit one application...

      No wonder we are in the shit...

      ALF

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Civil Service

    I've worked on a few projects which required CAA approved safety cases. The individuals are great - knowledgeable and professional - but they are hidebound in an inflexible process which wild horses couldn't drag them from. Review times are fixed - no matter how short the document it will take at least 6 weeks - and if you need to re-submit the clock starts ticking again. We tried to get them involved early in the design and safety management process to avoid errors later on, but they weren't interested - "when you've got the paperwork ready then submit it and we'll review it as per our process". They are not interested in the impacts of delays to projects and take a completely hands-off approach until the formal submissions. After the first project we employed very expensive consultants to help us with the CAA side (they weren't ex-CAA - I don't think anyone ever leaves the CAA until retirement because the deal is so good).

    I've also worked on a project in the UK for the US and the FAA asked to put one of their engineers in our team at their expense. She helped no end and smoothed wrinkles out with the FAA back in the US on the technical side and got them to prioritize stuff when we needed it. When we submitted the safety case docs to the FAA we were confident they would be approved, whereas with the CAA it felt much more like a lottery. We didn't need consultants, and overall the outcome was better for both the organizations because there were fewer review/rework/review cycles.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Civil Service

      We voted to be a "rule maker" not a rule taker, and we are just demonstrating that

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Civil Service

        Yes, what happened to the reduction in red tape Brexit was supposed to bring? Now we see rocket launches moving to the EU (Portugal), where the red tape is easier and less complex/costly.

        1. Wingnut29

          Re: Civil Service

          Except the Portugal launch capability is not yet ready nor are the LV's which wiull fly from there. In fact, the main LV flying from Portugal now (Since, let's face VO is about to go into administration) is RFA from Munich. And their maiden flight will be from... Saxavord in the Shetlands.. there we have it.

    2. SkippyBing

      Re: Civil Service

      They are also the only organisation I know that takes four weeks to mark multiple-choice exam papers, with a computer. Whereas at the time the German equivalent would tell you that day if you'd passed.

      Or the time they told me they couldn't issue my licence because I hadn't crossed their palms with silver. Which was odd as I had a month old receipt saying I had...

      1. ChrisElvidge Bronze badge

        Re: Civil Service

        Manchester University, early 1970s. We were marking multiple-choice exams by computer then (CDC7600 Fortran). Turnround was about 2 days.

    3. Stork

      Re: Civil Service

      It strikes me that Portugal is mentioned as an example of flexible and cooperative civil service.

      To be fair, you do find it in the reformed parts, and I could imagine the space office being so new they haven’t developed bad habits yet.

      1. Wingnut29

        Re: Civil Service

        Because Portugal has a new space agency (2 years old) and it has a mandate to succeed and has committed to developing a fit-for-purpose supply chain for launch. It did this for the aerospace sector and achieved a sustainable capability in ten years. Likewise, Norway with the Andoya launchsite has received a major gov bung. UK Launch has received naff all and over half of it went to Virgin Didn't. Who have squandered on it salaries in the US as far as i can tell.

  3. werdsmith Silver badge

    AMSAT-UK registered their cubesat AO-73 (funcube-1) through the Netherlands because UK was just too much hassle / money.

    Sort it out.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lets face it - this is not a space industry / CAA problem. This is a problem for so many aspects of UK technology and business and it is not the rules that have to be followed, but that lack of any engagement by bureaucratic entities and any help to follow them. Ask planning about some aspect and they won't help you - they will tell you to employ XYZ expert at your expense to provide an answer and they may, or may not, bother to accept it.

      1. Caver_Dave Silver badge
        Boffin

        The best way to get three expensive answers is to get two DER's into the same room!

        Both will provide very different answers to start with, and only after blood is spilt will they agree on a third answer.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Sort it out."

      But, the politicians said we would 'take back control' and they never lie, right? Right!?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        I think they said they would take back control

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