we ve already had a history of that. and we have more than one capability. you know, ee have resilience, we have flexibility you know, we have resilience, we have flexibility across supply chains. we really, really lead the world in small satellite manufacture. and satellites are used in almost all aspects of modern life, from communications to navigation to weather forecasting and crucially, monitoring climate change from above. but until now, british ones were shipped abroad to get into space. where we re seeing tremendous capability from these smaller satellites, they re often way back in the line for launch on one of these bigger vehicles. often they might be launched into an orbit, which isn t ideal for them because they re just the piggyback ride, so now is the time to develop a dedicated small satellite launch service, and that s exactly what we re going to have in the uk. and this unassuming box is one of the small satellites heading into space on this first launch.
an hour into the flight, the rocket fires its engines after being released from the plane. so far so good, but then this. it appears that launcher one has suffered an anomaly, which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission. a second engine burn had failed and the mission was over. all of the satellites lost. the remains of the rockets were captured on camera, coming back down to earth off the coast of the canary islands. for the team who d spent so long trying to make this happen, it was heartbreaking. just absolutely devastated. you know, we put our heart and soul into this, and it s such a personal journey for me as well, and my family were here. so, yeah, it was pretty, pretty rough. but i feel ok, i feel 0k. and i think it willjust be a few days ofjust kind of letting it sink in a little bit. the crowds went home disappointed as the jumbo jet returned to spaceport cornwall.
it belongs to a start up company called space forge, which is based in cardiff in wales. their satellites are mini factories that will make new materials while in orbit. in space, with the absence of gravity, you can mix together any different material you kind of want, and so if you take the whole period table and start putting things together, like lead aluminium, rubidium, einsteinium, there s billions of new alloys that you can now make that you couldn t make on earth. now, 99.9% of them won t be useful, but there will be a small fraction that are really useful, can be used in next generation, more efficient electric cars, planes, aircraft, faster computing, materials we are crying out for right now. the ability to launch british built devices from british soil could make a big difference. the fact that we can just drive down the road for a couple of hours
rockets from scratch. this is a prototype rocket. and as you can see, it s almost complete. and its launch will test the design, the manufacture and the technology to see if it works. if it does, the team will go bigger. over here are some of the components that will sit inside the larger rocket. it s called skyora xl, and these spheres are actually fuel tanks that will help it get into orbit. this is the nose cone that sits at the very top of the rocket. it s been undergoing testing to see if it can withstand the forces of a launch. that worked, but the team pushed it even further to see where its limits are to the point of destruction. that s all part of the process of building a rocket. it s a new industry that s creating jobs for science and engineering graduates. you do a full design on paper,
like probably lots of people there watching it. i am very excited about it, even though it s very late, i m going to beg my mum to watch it because i m really excited about it. and this is the rocket arriving in cornwall in october 2022. it will attempt to deliver satellites into orbit. if it succeeds, it will be the first time this has been done from british soil marking the start of a push to make the uk space flight central. for the maiden mission, newquay airport has been transformed into spaceport cornwall, and melissa thorpe is running the show. well, it s been eight years ofjust really hard work. the blood, sweat and tears of the team. i really, truly think that at the end of the day, it will create something that the rest of the world will want to come and use. but it s a launch with a difference instead of taking off vertically from the ground, the rocket is hitching a ride on a jumbojet for a mid air blastoff. this is the rocket, it s called