Advancing UK Aerospace, Defence, Security & Space Solutions Worldwide
  • Home
  • /
  • Space
  • /
  • Half a century since Black Arrow launched UK into space age

Space

Half a century since Black Arrow launched UK into space age

Today marks 50 years since the Black Arrow rocket conducted its first successful flight, launching the UK into the space age.



Above: The Black Arrow rocket.
Courtesy UK Space Agency

In the years since Black Arrow, the UK has become one of the world’s leading satellite manufacturers, providing technology that helps the world communicate, keeps people safe and monitors the environment.

The government wants to establish a new UK launch capability on a commercial footing, with a number of potential spaceports across the country and new launch operators developing the capability to take small satellites into orbit from UK soil.

Advertisement
ODU RT

Emma Floyd, Director of Commercial Spaceflight at the UK Space Agency, said: "Our aim is to establish commercial vertical and horizontal satellite launch from UK spaceports - providing world-leading capability, bringing new markets to the UK and inspiring the next generation of British space scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.

"Black Arrow is an important part of the UK’s space heritage, and it is great to be able to recognise the achievements of the past, as we look to the future."

The UK Space Agency is partnering with Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST) and British rocket launch provider Skyrora to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Arrow launch and the current success of the UK space sector. Skyrora brought the first stage of Black Arrow R3 back to the UK from Australia two years ago and has lent it to the FAST Museum where it will be on display from today for the next three years.

Advertisement
DSEI 2025

Black Arrow is of great historical and technical importance playing a pioneering role during the late 1960s and early 1970s in placing the first British designed and built space satellite into Earth orbit. The programme grew from earlier UK space research and development programmes undertaken by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, which included designing and building in conjunction with industry, a series of launch vehicles and their rocket engines, along with all the associated ground-based infrastructure, including assembly and test facilities in the UK and a launch complex with control and range facilities at Woomera, Australia.

The intention was to see if a rocket, capable of launching satellites into space, could be developed from existing technologies, for example HTP/kerosene powered engines developed in experimental British submarines and torpedoes.

The Black Arrow programme developed four rockets between 1969 and 1971. Black Arrow was a three-stage rocket, thirteen metres tall, with a single eight-chambered engine in its first stage. The third stage for Black Arrow was a solid rocket motor manufactured by RPE Westcott. The first stage of Black Arrow R3, the surviving launcher that was used to place the Prospero satellite into orbit in 1971, has been brought back to the UK by Skyrora and is now on public display at the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum, close to the original programme birthplace, the RAE Space Department.
 

Advertisement
Babcock LB
UK launches tender for space debris removal

Space

UK launches tender for space debris removal

3 July 2025

The UK Space Agency has launched a major new procurement process to tackle the growing threat of space debris, initiating a £75.6 million tender for the nation’s first mission to actively remove defunct satellites from orbit.

Boeing appoints Stephen Parker as CEO of BDS

Defence Security Space

Boeing appoints Stephen Parker as CEO of BDS

3 July 2025

Boeing today announced Stephen (Steve) Parker as president and chief executive officer of its Defense, Space & Security (BDS) business, effective immediately. Parker has served as interim leader of the Boeing business unit since September 2024.

UK students to launch international space mission

Space

UK students to launch international space mission

3 July 2025

A team of students from the University of Surrey, the University of Portsmouth and the University of Southampton are working to fit equipment they designed, made and tested to a suborbital launch vehicle which aims to launch 900km into space.

Airbus-built Sentinel-4 launched onboard MTG weather satellite

Space

Airbus-built Sentinel-4 launched onboard MTG weather satellite

2 July 2025

The European Space Agency (ESA) and its partners have confirmed the successful launch of the Airbus-built Sentinel-4, a cutting-edge air quality monitoring instrument hosted on the third generation Meteosat (MTG-S1) weather satellite.

Advertisement
Teledyne
Teledyne CIS120 sensors launch on GOSAT-GW

Space

Teledyne CIS120 sensors launch on GOSAT-GW

1 July 2025

Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, a provider of advanced imaging solutions, has confirmed that two CIS120 sensors designed and manufactured by Teledyne Space Imaging will play a major part in the third in a series of Japanese climate change and Earth observation satellite missions.

Expleo’s science-based climate action targets approved by SBTi

Aerospace Defence Space

Expleo’s science-based climate action targets approved by SBTi

27 June 2025

Expleo's near and long-term science-based emissions reduction targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Advertisement
ODU RT