LONDON, 20 Aug (AP) \u2014 A rocket engine exploded during a test launch at a new spaceport in the Shetland Islands off northern Scotland, the rocket manufacturer said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
German manufacturer Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, said no one was injured in the incident at SaxaVord Spaceport on the remote island of Unst on Monday evening.<\/p>\n
Video of Monday\u2019s test launch showed the engine exploding on the launchpad, with the entire structure engulfing in flames and thick smoke.<\/p>\n
The spaceport recently received its licenses from the Civil Aviation Authority and is designed for small rockets delivering payloads into low earth orbit. It is billed as western Europe\u2019s only fully-licensed vertical rocket launch port.<\/p>\n
RFA was running tests there ahead of holding the U.K.’s first vertical rocket launch into orbit this autumn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe launch pad has been saved and is secured, the situation is under control and any immediate danger has been mitigated,\u201d the company said in a statement. It is working with the spaceport and authorities to investigate what led to the explosion, RFA added.<\/p>\n
Britain has ambitions to become Europe\u2019s leading destination for commercial spaceflight activities. In 2022 a separate site in Cornwall, southwest England, became the first licensed U.K. spaceport, though rockets there are launched horizontally \u2014 they are carried by an aircraft to high altitudes before a rocket engine takes over.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, 20 Aug (AP) \u2014 A rocket engine exploded during a test launch at a new spaceport in the Shetland Islands off northern Scotland, the rocket manufacturer said Tuesday. German manufacturer Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, said no one was injured in the incident at SaxaVord Spaceport on the remote island of Unst on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}