SaxaVord Spaceport, the rocket launch facility on the Shetland Islands, has hosted French orbital launch company Latitude as it carries out the first test campaign of its Navier engine.
The Navier engine is built using 3D printing and designed to power the startup's Zephyr orbital rocket launcher in a maiden launch planned for 2024, which would be the first French orbital launcher since 1975.
Zephyr is a two-stage, 15-metre rocket designed to carry small payloads of nanosatellites into low orbit, principally for satellite replacements.
The company was founded as Venture Orbital Systems in Reims in 2019 and in February last year signed an agreement with SaxaVord Spaceport to plan for the 2024 launch. It hopes to reach 15 launches by 2026 and 40 by 2030.
Last summer, Latitude changed its name and closed a €10mln Series A funding round to take on more engineers to continue the rocket development and plan its future mass-production site.
1770km. 70 people. 10 little months.
The first test campaign of Navier rocket engine in Shetland Islands @SaxaVord_Space was a sum of “Voyages Extraordinaires”. Today, we are glad to lift the veil of this memorable chapter of our book ???? (1/2) https://t.co/2vTCpFnmjw
— Latitude (@Latitude_eu) March 20, 2023
SaxaVord, based on the Shetland isle of Unst, is thought to be among almost 40 space-related companies with licence applications in the pipeline with the UK's space regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority.
Following the CAA issuing the first UK spaceport licence to Spaceport Cornwall for horizontal launches last year, SaxaVord and Sutherland spaceport near Inverness are expected to be the first given the green light to carry out vertical launches in the UK.
SaxaVord earlier this year also signed an agreement with German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), including a planned first launch of the RFA One rocket system from the Shetland islands at the end of this year.