Trial by fire
This week, a rocket exploded during a test on the British Shetland Islands, causing a massive fireball that engulfed the entire launch pad.
No one was injured in the fire, it is said The BBCwhich was ignited as part of a test round for the vertical launch rocket of the German aerospace company Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), i.e. it takes off from an upright position directly from a launch pad – a complex launch process that requires an enormous amount of energy and power.
“We will take time to analyze and assess the situation,” RFA said The New York Timesand added that the fire was caused by one of the space industry’s most beautiful euphemisms: an “anomaly.” SaxaVord Spaceport, the builder of the launch structure, told the BBC that “this was a test and test campaigns are intended to identify problems before the next phase.”
“We will work with RFA to understand and learn from the causes,” SaxaVord added, “and support them in moving into the next phase of their preparations.”
If RFA is ultimately successful and can build its rocket, the launch would be the first vertical rocket launch in European history, according to the BBC. However, judging by the massive fireball, the rocket company may still have a long way to go.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1825854038878884066
Drawing board
According to the BBCSaxaVord hasn’t been in operation for very long, having only been approved for orbital launches by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in December 2023. And unfortunately for some other space hopefuls, RFA wasn’t the launch pad operator’s only customer; European rocket makers HyImpulse and Skyrora were scheduled to use the port, as was a German offshoot of Lockheed Martin called ABL Space Systems (though the latter was scheduled to use the launch pad to launch smaller payloads into orbit, not test rockets).
For its part, the CAA defends RFA and SaxaVord. In a statement published on X (formerly Twitter), the umbrella organization wrote that “the advancement of space technology is complex” and “tests like the one at SaxaVord are essential for future success.”
“Operators and regulations anticipate incidents such as this,” the CAA added.
Ultimately, this sort of thing is expensive and destructive, but it’s a fairly common occurrence in spaceflight, especially during earlier rounds of testing. We’re glad no one was hurt, and hey – at least the mistake happened down on the ground.
More on exploding rockets: SpaceX rocket suffers catastrophic failure and explodes while deploying satellites
