Spotting leaky pipes from orbit

PRIVATE utility Anglian Water, which supplies water services to around seven million people across eastern England and is under pressure to cut back on excessive wastage from leaky pipes, is turning to out-of-this-world technology for help.

The Huntingdon-based company is using space age technology, originally developed to detect water lying below the surface of Mars, the red planet, to locate hard to find underground leaks. Information gathered by the latest Earth-orbiting satellites is crunched by specialist computer algorithms and then turned into images as a way of helping engineers solve the costly environmental problem.

The system was first created to detect water on Mars and pioneering space firm Asterra is now redeploying its space know-how to help utility companies like Anglian Water solve a long-standing problem.

“It’s not just water that is wasted by leaking pipes – every drop also represents a substantial emission of carbon,” says founder and chief technology officer of the London and Tel Aviv-based company, Lauren Guy.

Anglian Water admits it loses 182 million litres of water per day across its network, an equivalent leakage of approximately 16-18 percent when compared to the amount of water running through the network each day.

“We recently used the Asterra technology to pinpoint some significant leaks that would never have been identified due to the relatively low percentage loss”, a company spokesperson said.

“These non-visible, underground leaks were in remote areas and would never have been reported by a customer, or indeed found using traditional detection sweeps.

“They often run through agricultural and rural farmland where traditional detection, or even smart distribution leakage technology, is difficult to use due to the lack of fittings and the sheer geographical size of an area.”

The water firm says the Asterra expertise allows it to use satellite data to detect leaks from otherwise difficult-to-inspect transfer pipes and trunk mains right across its system.

Before space technology stepped in, staff from water utility companies had to ‘walk the line’ in search of leaks, often manually inspecting mile upon mile of pipes each day in the hope of catching the sound of trickling water.

More modern techniques, such as installing acoustic sensors to listen automatically for leaking pipes are effective but can only cover limited areas before becoming cost prohibitive. Planetary scientists searching for the holy grail of Martian water then realised that orbiting spacecraft with special radar sensors could be used to spy out water lying below the red planet’s surface.

Asterra’s adaptation of this space-based solution for terrestrial use came after Guy realised that if satellite technology could locate water under the surface of Mars it could also be used to help track down water leakages closer to home. His discovery was made possible by sensors known in the space business as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which are used on many of the latest low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and can peer through cloud and below Earth’s surface.

L-band SAR uses the motion of a radio antenna to build up images which typically cover areas of around 3,500 square km at a time. It works by transmitting radio frequency waves and recording what is reflected to the receiver, revealing details on the nature of the reflective material, including the moisture content of soil.

Asterra’s breakthrough relies on sophisticated data processing using proprietary geophysical modelling and analysis. “It allows us to pick up the signature of leaking water in densely populated urban areas packed with interferences to SAR imaging”, explains Guy. “The observations are much more than high-quality images and, since perfecting the art of extracting a signal from the noise, we can provide game-changing insights to the water industry.”

All this means city and county-wide systems for transporting drinking water and wastewater can be more easily analysed to identify subsurface leaks that otherwise go undetected. (See satellite image from JAXA at top of article with blue lines showing water pipes and yellow dots “points of interest” where satellite data indicates a leak).

“It goes without saying that if leaks can be plugged, then the volume of water saved can amount to an entirely new water source and the requirement to drill new wells, raise dams or invest in expensive desalination plants is significantly reduced,” says Guy.

“Cleaning, treating, pumping and distributing water is an energy-intensive process, and any water going to waste represents unnecessary greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere. Our mission is to help water infrastructure companies improve the distribution of clean water and cut back on waste.”

 Editor's note: an original version of this article was published on Central Bylines.

Satellites lost in UK launch failure

AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after an attempt to make space history by launching satellites from British soil for the first time has ended in failure due to an anomaly in the second stage of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.

After successfully taking off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall and travelling to the designated drop zone, Cosmic Girl, the customized 747 Jumbo Jet that serves as the LauncherOne system's carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket.

The rocket ignited its first stage engines, quickly going hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage but at some point during the firing of the rocket's second stage engine, and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, the system experienced an anomaly which prematurely ended the mission.

The first stage burns for around three minutes before reaching main engine cutoff (MECO) and stage separation occurs some three seconds later. The second stage’s NewtonFour engine ignites four seconds after separation to begin the first of two planned burns.

The payload fairing separates from the nose of LauncherOne about 20-30 seconds after second stage ignition. The first burn was to last about five and a half minutes, ending with second stage engine cutoff 1 (SECO-1). With this complete, the second stage would enter a coast phase, performing a barbecue roll to help manage thermal conditions.

Around the D+47 minute mark in the mission, the second stage was planned to begin to reorient itself to make its second burn. This burn would have commenced about six and a quarter minutes later, with the burn lasting a few seconds to circularise the orbit. Payload deployments were expected to begin about a minute after the end of the second burn.

A Virgin Orbit spokesperson said: “Though the mission did not achieve its final orbit by reaching space and achieving numerous significant first-time achievements, it represents an important step forward.

“The effort behind the flight brought together new partnerships and integrated collaboration from a wide range of partners, including the UK Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, the Civil Aviation Authority, the US Federal Aviation Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office, and more, and demonstrated that space launch is achievable from UK soil.”

The company said that out of five LauncherOne missions carrying payloads for private companies and governmental agencies, this is the first to fall short of delivering its payloads to their precise target orbit.

Earlier in the evening the Start Me Up mission had got off to a seemingly perfect start as Cosmic Girl - which had previously only been launched from its Calfornia base the Mojave Air & Space Port - took off from Newquay Airport in Cornwall on the south west coast of England.

On a cold and windy night, it was cheered on by around 2000 spectators who had been lucky enough to receive tickets to witness the start of the mission from special viewing areas at the airport and on giant screens. The plane took off precisely on time at 1701 EST (2201 GMT) Monday (January 9, 2023).

Piloted by Sqn Ldr Matthew Stannard, a Royal Air Force test pilot, it headed out over the Atlantic to the south west of Ireland to reach a height of 35,000 ft (10,700 m) where it performed a ‘race track’ manoeuver before releasing LauncherOne.

The two-stage, expendable launch vehicle is designed to place small satellites of up to 500 kg (1,100 lb) into a wide range of low Earth orbits (LEO). Rather than launching from the ground like a conventional rocket, it is carried to launch altitude by the 747 aircraft which has its own mission control room in the plane's former Premium & Economy cabin.

Among the nine satellites onboard were the UK's Ministry of Defence, the sultanate of Oman, the US National Reconnaissance Office and British startups including the Welsh company Space Forge, which is developing reusable satellites. All were lost before reaching orbit and are likely to have burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, said: "While we are very proud of the many things that we successfully achieved as part of this mission, we are mindful that we failed to provide our customers with the launch service they deserve.

“The first-time nature of this mission added layers of complexity that our team professionally managed through; however, in the end a technical failure appears to have prevented us from delivering the final orbit. We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions, and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process."

The UK-launched mission - titled Start Me Up in honor of the Rolling Stones' 1981 hit - brought timely publicity to the emergence of a competitive small-launch sector, just as Europe grapples with reduced launch capability due to the Ukraine war, which has cut access to Russian Soyuz vehicles, as well as Ariane 6 delays and the grounding of Vega rockets after a failed launch last month.

Matt Archer, director of commercial spaceflight at the UK Space Agency (UKSA), said he was hugely disappointed that the mission had not been successful but still pleased that the first launch of satellites from Europe had taken place from British soil.

“We don’t know what caused the anomaly but we achieved a launch,” he added. “A lot of positives have been achieved but space is hard and we knew that this had a risk of failure because launches don’t always work. But we’ve created the conditions for launch here. We’ve shown we can do it and we’ll look to do it again.”

Spaceport Cornwall received the United Kingdom’s first-ever spaceport license from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in November and in late December Virgin Orbit was issued launch and range control licenses, which ensured all regulatory, safety and environmental requirements had been met.

Expressing her own disappointment, Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, said: “We put our hearts and soul into this and it is absolutely devastating. But this isn’t the first time we’ve been knocked but this is definitely the biggest definitely. We’re a resilient team and we’ll get up and we’ll go again.”

Virgin Orbit’s previous four operational launches, which all lifted off from California, were all successful and had deployed a total of 33 small satellites. Despite its latest failure to orbit satellites on Monday night, the mission notched up a number of space firsts including the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom, the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, and the first commercial launch from western Europe.

The idea of releasing a rocket from a converted jetliner was pioneered by Orbital Sciences in the 1990s as a novel way of offering a flexible and low-cost route to orbit as the demand for sending small satellites into low Earth orbit grows exponentially.

Chris Larmour, CEO of UK-based rocket company Orbex, said: “Space is never easy, so we were sorry to learn that Virgin Orbit's first horizontal orbital space launch from the UK did not go as planned. We know how much time, effort and energy must have been invested to deliver that launch attempt, and we wish them well for their next mission.

“The Orbex team is fully focused on introducing the UK to vertical orbital launches with the debut of our UK-built environmentally-friendly rocket, Prime. We will be launching from our own pad at Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland in the near future.”  

Editor's note: Original versions of this article were published by Spaceflight Now and ROOM Space Journal.

Area devastated by reservoir plan

A MULIT-BILLION pound infrastructure project to build a reservoir on land near Sleaford in South Lincolnshire would transform the local landscape as well as devastating families and farmers who would lose their homes and businesses.

Private utility Anglian Water has kicked off a 10-week public consultation which will run until 21 December. This is the first part of a multi-phased consultation process on the proposal before a Development Consent Order is requested. A final decision is expected to be made by the government in 2027.

The application process will see test digging and excavations across the area and, if approved, full-scale construction could be underway within seven years. The reservoir would start supplying water to the Anglian Water region by the end of the 2030s.

The five square km reservoir would be sandwiched between the villages of Scredington, Swaton and Helpringham, with the A52 road near Threekingham marking its southern boundary. It is expected to extend over 1,000 acres – similar in size to Anglian Water’s Grafham reservoir near Huntingdon – and cost an estimated £2bn.

Alex Plant Director of Strategy & Regulation for Anglian Water, said: “The reality is stark for the East of England. Getting these projects underway now means the chances of our taps running dry in the future are significantly reduced.

“We operate in the driest part of the country and receive a third less rainfall than anywhere else in the UK, but we’re also one of the fastest growing regions, with 175,000 new homes to be built in the next five years. Without action we will face a water deficit of millions of litres a day within the next five years – let alone 25 years.”

Anglian Water anticipates that its ‘South Lincolnshire Reservoir’ would be able to supply around 100 million litres of water per day throughout the year. By comparison the utility company loses 183 million litres of water per day across its network, an equivalent leakage of approximately 16-18% when compared to the amount of water running through its pipes each day.

Les Parker a member of Sleaford Climate Action Network (SCAN), said Anglian Water should first demonstrate it has done all it can to reduce demand and thereby the need for additional storage.

“This means not just minimising leaks but also ensuring users, and particularly large industrial users, reduce demand by becoming more efficient.

“We should also ask whether this is the best location from an operational point of view and be sure it causes the lowest ecological impact achievable for any of the workable locations.

“This would mean not only considering existing ‘nature’ but also minimising the impact on land requirement for food production by avoiding high grade agricultural land.”

Parker added that Anglian Water needed to ensure any new reservoir improves the ecology of an area used, including damage caused to local infrastructure during construction.

Farmers Ian and Rebecca Chick have been at Highgate Farm, Scredington, since they bought it seven years ago. They now supply 4,000 pigs a year to Waitrose and Marks & Spencer as well as having 600 sheep, 40 goats and nine alpacas.

“It’s not only about the farm’s value but also the investment we have made, which is twice what we paid for the farm and its land,” said Rebecca.

“We’re fully established now and very productive. The farm is our future and, like everyone else affected, we are totally devastated. So far Anglian Water has not even bothered to turn up at any of the meetings to hear our side of the story.”

Lyn Sills of Spanby, says that after news of the reservoir plan first came out in September the sale of her farmhouse had immediately fallen through.

“I am now in a situation where I am unable to build, unable to sell and unable to remortgage, and Fisher German, the agent for Anglian Water, has requested an eight year option – it’s a joke!” she said.

After meeting with residents, local MP for Sleaford & North Hykeham Dr Carolyn Johnson called for clear and honest communication by Anglian Water.

“Many of my constituents living within the Scredington, Helpringham, Burton, Spanby and Swaton communities will be incredibly concerned. People are understandably distressed about what these proposals, should they go ahead, mean for their homes and livelihoods, with this area being home to many local farmers in particular,” she said.

“Not only are there deep concerns about the location of the reservoir in the first instance, but also about the knock-on effects such as house prices, business plans for farmers and the mental health of those affected by the reservoir.”

The MP says she plans to hold further meetings with Anglian Water to highlight the impact that the proposed location of this reservoir and the timescale for construction would have on her constituents.

“I will keep local residents updated on these meetings and I would encourage those affected to engage fully in the public consultation processes,” she added.

Another of the many farming families devastated by the project is Hannah Thorogood, who runs an organic farm known as The Inkpot which lies right at the heart of the area laid out in the plans.

“Of course we are all heartbroken,” she said. “The whole area is now blighted for a very long time and though Anglian Water have repeatedly indicated just 12 residents would be affected our calculations are that at least 100 people, and probably a lot more, will lose their homes, or land or both. In addition, some 1700 residents in neighbouring villages will potentially be looking at steep, bunded banks.

“There is so much more to this than meets the eye and the massive construction and land moving effort will give it a huge carbon footprint. Among other things, the uncertainty this has delivered is already affecting people’s mental health.”

Over the past decade single-mum Hannah has transformed 18-acres of land into a diverse and vibrant organic farm, recognised nationally and producing award-winning food.

The Inkpot is an example of regenerative agriculture and permaculture with a herd of rare breed Lincolnshire Red cows, sheep and turkeys. It has been home to Hannah’s family since September 2010, in which time they have also planted 3,000 trees and introduced the holistic grazing of cows and sheep.

“We understand that affected residents will not receive the value of their homes or farms until 2029, so effectively none of us can move on with our lives until then. We will be forced to live under this shadow while in the meantime they can come and start intrusive advance surveying,” Hannah added.

In response to questions, Anglian Water said the outer faces of the embankments would be designed to “reflect the character of the existing landscape” with embankment height around the reservoir up to 25m in places.

As a comparison, one of the area’s most recognisable local landmarks – Heckington’s historic eight-sailed windmill – stands at about 20m high above the flat fen landscape.

A spokesperson also stated that the majority of excavated materials will be re-used in construction so they will not need to be transported off site, reducing the number of HGV movements.

“Whilst there will be some associated construction traffic, it is too early to say which routes will be affected and we will work closely with relevant highways authorities, local authorities and the surrounding communities to mitigate impacts as much as possible.”

The spokesperson added that the existing Helpringham to Scredington Road – falling within the reservoir’s planned footprint – would be diverted on a new route around the embankments.

Deputy President of the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) Tom Bradshaw, stressed that the development process must protect the needs of farmers, landowners and tenants, and ensure they are actively involved in decision-making at all stages.

He said the NFU recognised the critical importance of water to build resilience in domestic food production systems, but would be seeking assurances that farming businesses would benefit from the additional water resources of a new reservoir.

“Such major schemes can have significant adverse impacts on farm businesses and the people involved. It’s vital that the design and implementation during construction must be carried out in a way that minimises the impact on land ownership and farming operations.

“We will be working to support any members affected by these schemes and to ensure that agricultural water needs are recognised as an explicit part of future resource use plans.”

Editor’s note: Versions of this article have appeared in Heckington Living magazine and on Central Bylines.

A whiter shade of pale

MOST Europeans live under light-polluted skies and the first colour map of Europe at night, created with images from the International Space Station (ISS), shows a sharp increase in light pollution. The resulting picture is not a pretty one for the environment.

Over the last two decades, astronauts on the Space Station have witnessed how cities shine whiter at night as new street lighting technologies were introduced.

When ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti gazed at Earth from orbit during her recent Minerva mission, cities glowed brighter than the stars. Since 2003, Samantha and other European astronauts have taken over a million pictures of Earth at night with digital cameras to demonstrate the true extent of light pollution.

A team of European researchers processed the pictures and compared them over time, showing a clear increase of lighting pollution in urban areas, and a shift towards whiter and bluer emissions. This is due to the widespread introduction of light-emitting diode lamps, or LED technology.

“As seen from space, the resulting image looks like a cancer scan or a fluorescent spider’s web that keeps growing,” says Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, research fellow at the UK’s University of Exeter. Their recent paper highlights how invasive night lights are and their negative effects for the environment.

As Europe turns lights down in an urge to save energy, scientists warn that it should not only be about reducing bills – brighter nights are disrupting the night cycle for humans, animals and plants.

Colour pictures taken from the Space Station are the best source for scientists to map artificial light at night. Current satellite images are not fit for purpose because their colour sensitivity does not show low wavelength emissions with enough quality.

“Without the images taken by the astronauts, we would be driving blind into the environmental impact of the LED transition,” says Alejandro. “Astronaut photos have always been – and will always be – the baseline for night time Earth observations.”

The composite nighttime colour maps created before and after the spread of LED streetlight technology show a pronounced whitening of artificial light. See view of London from ISS at top of page - the images were taken 400 km above Earth by André Kuipers in 2012 (left) and by Samantha Cristoforetti in 2022.

The changes vary per country, and reflect different systems and policies when it comes to light the streets. Whereas there has been a marked increase in light pollution in Italy and the United Kingdom, countries like Germany and Austria show a less dramatic change in spectral emissions.

Milan was the first city in Europe to do a total conversion of its street lighting to white LEDs, and more than half of all the public street lighting in the UK was converted by early 2019.

Germany’s glow is whitening, and the country has a lot of fluorescent and mercury vapour lights still in use.

“By the end of this decade, all Europe could look white from space,” says Alejandro.

On the warmer side of the spectrum, Belgium shines in deep orange due to the widespread use of low-pressure sodium lights. High-pressure sodium lights make the Netherlands emit a golden glow.

According to the scientists, the transition towards white and blue-rich light radiation is eroding the natural nighttime cycles across the continent. It disturbs the circadian day-and-night rhythm of living organisms, including humans, with negative health effects on species and whole ecosystems.

The study focuses on three major negative impacts: the suppression of melatonin, the phototaxic response of insects and bats, and the visibility of stars in the night sky.

“When we turn the streetlights on, we deprive our body of the hormone melatonin and disrupt our natural sleep pattern,” explains Alejandro.

Most insects and nocturnal animals are extremely sensitive to light. Not only moths, but almost all the bat species that bread in Europe live in regions where the spectral composition of nighttime lighting has become whiter. Scientists claim that this has a direct impact in their ability to move and react to a light source, also called phototaxic response.

Along with other animals, humans have long used the stars for navigation. In modern times, a worsening in the visibility of stars goes beyond geolocation and astronomical observations. Scientists are concerned that not seeing the night sky may have negative impacts on people’s sense of ‘nature’ and their place in the universe.

While the LED lighting revolution promised to reduce energy consumption and improve human vision at night – and with it, a sense of safety –, the study shows that overall emissions have increased. Paradoxically, the cheaper and better the lighting, the higher is society’s addiction to light.

The paper speculates with the existence of a ‘rebound effect’ in outdoor lighting, where power efficiency and associated cost reduction increases the demand for lighting and diminishes any efficiency gains.

Urban nights in Europe are growing a little darker though. Pushed by a looming energy crisis, wasted light is financially more painful. Several European cities are switching off the lights – from Madrid to Paris and via Berlin, hundreds of monuments and public buildings are no longer illuminated at night.

These initiatives are all part of efforts to reduce energy consumption by 15 percent, following plans laid out by the European Commission last month. The objective is two-fold: to foster a resilient and more autonomous economy ahead of the winter, and to responsibly reduce carbon emissions.

Conceived in space

DUTCH-based space research firm SpaceBorn United is targeting a ground-breaking space mission in the first half of 2023 that will see the fertilisation of rodent embryos in artificial gravity followed by a pregnancy and birth in a laboratory back on Earth.

Using SpaceBorn’s new ‘Space-Embryo-Incubator’ flying in low Earth orbit (LEO), several mice will become the first animals in history to be conceived and born in this way.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by SpaceBorn United CEO Egbert Edelbroek and Izmir Yamin, CEO of Malaysian re-entry capsule manufacturer Independence-X Aerospace (IDXA), at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, France.

The agreement paves the way for an initial flight next year of the ARTIS (Assisted Reproduction Technology in Space) mission which will use Independence-X’s low-cost launch service and re-entry capsule.

“Our ARTIS prototype is in full development to prepare for the first test flight. Our goal to enable safe embryo development in space starts with testing the prototype in space with mouse sperm and oocytes,” said Dr Edelbroek.

“A series of ARTIS missions in the coming years will enable research on partial gravity effects on embryo development and help us move towards the ultimate goal of human reproduction and childbirth in space.”

The payload contains male and female reproduction cells and, once deployed in LEO, the embryos are automatically impregnated and start developing in an artificial, Earth-like level of gravity. After five days the incubator is returned to Earth via the Independence-X re-entry vehicle, known as MERCAP (Microgravity Experiment Re-entry Capsule).

In laboratory conditions back on Earth, the embryos will be placed in healthy mouse pups for gestation and birth to occur, their development monitored and compared to control samples.

Independence-X is a Malaysian space company that has developed a small launch vehicle called DNLV (Dedicated Nano Launch Vehicle) with a maximum payload of 200 kg and capable of putting satellites into LEO.

“The signing of the MoA between Independence-X Aerospace and SpaceBorn United marks a historic moment in the space industry,” says Mohd Izmir bin Yamin, Founder, CEO & CTO.

“For the first time an unmanned orbital laboratory with re-entry capabilities is being flown for bio tech research and we see this as a key to unlock potential for the human expansion into the deep space.

“Independence-X will provide the re-entry vehicle and the on board support system, SpaceBorn United will provide the precious microfluidic payload to carry out the experiment in space,” he added.

“This MOA will mark the beginning of human reproduction in Space and the next step for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.”

IDXA is a company of industry professionals and academics based at Sendayan Metropark in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. As well as serving the global space industry, it aims to create a Malaysian space hub and contribute to socio-economic development of the region through space-related technologies.

SpaceBorn United, based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, describes itself as the first bio-tech and mission development company working to make human conception and embryo development in space feasible, eventually enabling human pregnancy and birth in space.

Dr Edelbroek, who is also an MP of the space nation Asgardia which was formed in 2016 and has the stated goal of facilitating the first human birth in space, added: “If humanity wants to become a multi-planetary species we also need to learn how to reproduce in space. This is what we are working towards.”

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In the photo above: MOA signing ceremony in Paris. Pictured are (standing from left): Nor Azila Wirda binti Mohd Din (Deputy Director, MIDA Paris), Abdullah Ma'amor bin Ibrahim, Minister Counsellor (Malaysian Embassy, France), Mohd Fadeli bin Md Halid (Product Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Afiq bin Mohd Rashdi (Control Systems Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Dr Aqeel Shamsul (CEO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd) and Mat Zalasiewicz (CTO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd). Sitting: Mohd Izmir bin Yamin (Founder, CEO & CTO, Independence-X Aerospace) and Dr Egbert Edelbroek (Founder & CEO, SpaceBorn United).

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Editor's note: given the somewhat controversial nature of engineering conceptions in space and its long-term implications, I am suprised this story, from the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, did not get more traction and/or star billing in some of the tabloid press. A plan to conceive mice in Earth orbit and then have them born in a laboratory back on Earth would write its own headlines!

North Norfolk's rocket firm

From Beijing and Hyderabad to Adelaide, from Kazakstan to Mexico, from French Guiana to Florida - over the years I've had the privilege to travel pretty much all over the world to report on space stories, launches and space conferences.

So over the summer it was rather nice to receive an invite to cover a space-related event somewhere much closer to home - infact barely a stone's throw from my home in Lincolnshire, a relatively short drive away in the county of Norfolk.

Colleague Daniel Smith, the founder of AstroAgency, came down from Edinburgh too for the event and so we were able to car-share the journey across the flatplans of the Lincolnshire Fens into the kinder and gently rolling Norfolk countryside.

Here's my story from the day, which was published on several space and general news websites.

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AMBITIOUS space-start-up Gravitilab is leading the race to establish the first vertical launch site in England close to the nerve centre of the UK space industry.

Operating from a former RAF base in the wilds of North Norfolk, the firm also plans to corner a slice of the international space market with its world-leading zero-gravity drone and eco-friendly sounding rockets.

Gravitilab claims it is the first UK-based company to provide end-to-end microgravity for research and testing, as well as the first in the world to offer it from a drone-launched pod system.

The firm’s fleet of rockets, designed exclusively for microgravity testing, includes ADA which became the first ever commercial rocket launched from UK soil in August 2021.

ADA is a smaller version of its principal commercial rocket, ISAAC, will fly to an altitude of 250 km and provide around 300 seconds of microgravity before returning to Earth for recovery and re-use. Its inaugural mission is slated for the first half of 2023.

Rockets will initially launch from UK Spaceport 1 at Benbecula Airport in the Outer Hebrides but by the middle of the decade Gravitilab plans to be operating an offshore launch pad in the North Sea off the Norfolk coast.

“A key reason for doing this is because all UK spaceports are a long way away from the heart of where the primary areas of UK space interest lie,” said Mark Roberts, the company’s recently appointed managing director. “We are much closer geographically so it makes great sense to bring clients here.”

He also suggested that providing high quality microgravity environments for test, experimentation and science, at affordably competitive price points would stimulate the market.

Gravitilab’s drop pod system, LOUIS, recently delivered a world first for microgravity from a drone. It provides the opportunity to run more local and affordable testing campaigns albeit from lower altitudes.

Speaking to space industry professionals, academia and government representatives at the firm’s headquarters near Norwich on Friday (8 July), CEO Rob Adlard, says the company’s ambition is to reduce the high failure rate of nanosatellites in low Earth orbit.

“We are developing technologies and services to provide accessible and affordable research and testing services that will enable innovation while also helping to reduce the build up of space debris,” he stated.

Adlard says Gravitilab’s services support the space qualification of equipment which could help reduce the current up to 50 percent failure rate of newly deployed nanosatellites, with 75 percent of those failures immediate.

“We have developed a fleet of sub-orbital, hybrid powered rockets and a revolutionary Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) which releases a drop pod from a high altitude drone,” he said.

“Our range of vehicles enable customers to expose research & testing payloads to real space environments to understand how they behave with variations in temperature, thrust, radiation, vibration and, most importantly, microgravity.”

Space technology readiness for satellite hardware is assessed using an industry standard known as the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, which ranks technology preparedness between 0 and 9.

Gravitilab believes it can address a gap between TRL levels 5 and 8 where it isn’t possible to test in a laboratory on Earth before an actual orbital mission. It says testing and certifying components in sub-orbital microgravity at relatively low-cost will make a major contribution to future space sustainability.

Katherine Courtney, former CEO of the UK Space Agency (UKSA), described space sustainability as a key priority in the country’s national space strategy.

“The UK space sector is becoming known the world over for it's focus on sustainability and the responsible use of space,” she said.

“But there is still a critical gap in the UK space value chain and that's the ability to safely and sustainably conduct experiments and test new technologies in microgravity from the UK. I'm delighted that Gravitilab is plugging that gap.” 

Breaking the Brexit taboo

FAR from blazing a path to new heights the British economy is well and truly in the doldrums with little sign of a fair wind whipping up to fan things back into life. Like Earth's climate it is on the edge of an avoidable catastrophe.

According to Will Hutton, economic journalist and commentator, the current British economic debate is therefore all the more bewildering, marooned as it is in a discourse in which one of the pivotal economic facts of 2022 is largely ignored.

Writing in The Observer newspaper (3 July 2022), he says the Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England talk about the dangers of inflation, of the risk of a wage price spiral and the need for pay restraint – but never about the escalating sterling crisis and what lies behind it.

“But Brexit is not going away and it cannot be avoided,” he asserts, while reminding us that last week we learned that in the first three months of 2022 Britain’s current account deficit was the worst since records began in 1955.

It stood at a stunning 8.3 percent of GDP – the kind of deficit recorded by “banana republics before they collapse into slump, banking crises and hyperinflation”.

Hutton says the figures are so “terrifyingly bad” that even a shaken Office for National Statistics cautions that it is uncertain about the quality of its own data. 

“But the core reality cannot be dodged and revisions will impact only at the margins rather than reverse the story: real export volumes over the period are down 4.4 percent and import volumes up a gigantic 10.4 percent.”

Apologists point to exploding energy costs, statistical vagaries, the ongoing distortions of Covid, weak world markets and supply chain effects - all of which are playing their part.

“But what cannot be mentioned is Brexit and the obvious depressive impact it is having on UK exports and inward investment flows,” he writes.

"Britain is entering dangerous territory – the economy is falling into recession, investment is flat, while inflation, high across the industrialised world because of the fallout from the war in Ukraine, is highest in the UK largely because of the weak pound, which has no support from any quarter.

"The refusal of the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, even to acknowledge what is happening and why is beginning to be a source of lack of market confidence in itself.

“Without full access to the EU single market and customs union – the UK’s largest market – there is no possibility of an export recovery, nor a recovery in inward investment, nor a lifting of economic confidence,” says Hutton.

“As the Bank of America warns, Britain faces an existential sterling crisis, made worse because of the refusal of the government and many economic commentators to look the truth in the eye.”

Hutton cites the 1976 sterling crisis, triggered by the conviction of the foreign exchange markets that already very high inflation was certain to get out of hand, as an eerie parallel.

"There was nothing to prop up a falling pound, given the current account deficit was running at what seemed an unimaginable four precent of GDP – half today’s deficit," he says.

But one of the big differences between now and the 1970s is that back then the UK was embedded in a network of strong trading relationships. Having recently joined the Common Market, it could trade its way back to international creditworthiness with North Sea oil about to reinforce the impetus.

Hutton believes that Britain needs to be in the single market and customs union to have any prospect of price stability and growth. “It needs to be within the political architecture of Europe for its own security, given the dark menace of Russia,” he says.

“The British economic and political ship is foundering, damaged by the rock of Brexit; its captains need to be called out for their errant seamanship. A fundamental change of course is an imperative. The future political stars in both the Labour and Conservative parties are those with the courage to say so.”

Hutton also derided the Labour opposition for its “vows of silence”, a situation which Sir Keir Starmer began to remedy this week in the first of several speeches outlining future Labour policies.

Starmer’s Brexit 'policy' - essentially to “Make Brexit Work” by being more cooperative and less antagonistic towards Europe - is hardly brave or inspiring but it reflects a harsh political reality.

With a lawyer’s forensic mind, he knows the remotest hint about rejoining the single market or customs union would be a huge gift to the Tories and their right-wing media clients, who’d love nothing more than to fight the next election on Brexit once again.

The hard Brexit tide maybe turning in the minds of the public but, much to the chagrin of many ‘remainers’, Starmer has to play it cool for now at least.

Editor’s note: Will Hutton is a British journalist and was formerly editor-in-chief for The Observer, for which he now writes a regular column. He co-chairs the Purposeful Company, and is the president-designate of the Academy of Social Sciences. The full article, on which this commentary is based, is on this link