First satellite launch from Britain may spark military appetite

A mobile air-launched rocket system to be used in Britain's first domestic satellite launch could sow the seeds for a globally dispersed rapid-response capability to put extra eyes in space in times of war, executives and analysts said.

Virgin Orbit, which is part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, planned to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket attached under the wing of a modified Boeing 747, to be flown from a new spaceport in Cornwall on Monday.

Barring delays, it was to be the first time a satellite has departed from Western European soil.

For now, the focus is on commercial payloads from companies such as Space Forge, which is developing in-orbit manufacturing.

But the launch is also seen by many as a blueprint for quicker launches of limited satellite capacity for tactical military purposes, in what planners call "responsive launch".

"Ukraine woke up the world in a lot of ways," Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart told a news conference in England on Sunday.

"Clearly, there is a hope of a pan-European, as well as a US collaboration... and that we have responsiveness so that if something happens in the world, we can get assets there right away," he told the pre-launch briefing, monitored online.