British aerospace company Orbex (www.orbex.space) revealed its Prime rocket — designed to put small satellites into Earth’s orbit — for the first time earlier this month, at the opening of its new headquarters and rocket design facility in Forres.

Made from a lightweight carbon-fibre and aluminium composite and including the world’s largest 3-D printed rocket engine, the Orbex Prime is a completely re-thought and re-engineered two-stage rocket, designed by Orbex aerospace
engineers with professional experience from organisations including NASA, ESA and Ariane.

Thanks to its novel architecture, Prime launchers are said to be up to 20% more efficient than any other vehicle in the small launcher category.

The 3-D printed rocket engine was manufactured in a single piece (without joins) with the help of SLM Solutions, a leading manufacturer of 3-D metal printers.

Given the extreme temperature and pressure fluctuations involved in space flight, this gives the engine an advantage over other rocket engines, which can suffer from weaknesses associated with joining and welding.

It is also the first commercial rocket engine designed to work with bio-propane, a clean-burning, renewable fuel source that will be supplied by Orbex’s fuel partner Calor.

The UK Space Agency announced in July 2018 that Orbex had been chosen to launch from a proposed spaceport in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands, and the company announced that it had already won £30 million of private and public backing, making it Europe’s best-funded private launch company.

On the Orbex Prime’s maiden flight from Scotland in 2021, the rocket will carry an experimental payload from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), the world’s leading manufacturer of small satellites.

This launch will represent an important first for the UK commercial space industry — a demonstration of its end-to-end launch capability, with a UK rocket launching a UK satellite from a UK launch site.