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Rocket Manufacturing facility Augsburg (RFA) is decided to debut its RFA One rocket by the top of this yr. Making use of industrialization strategies to constructing low-cost, high-performance rockets, the flight may develop into the primary vertical orbital launch from UK soil.
Progress on two additional pads is underway on the SaxaVord spaceport, as the 2 organizations rely down collectively to a historic maiden launch. NSF caught up with RFA’s chief working officer, Stefan Brieschenk, and SaxaVord’s COO, Debbie Strang, to debate how the collaboration will assist to drive Europe’s future in house.
RFA’s Stefan Brieschenk believes there are not any inexpensive small rockets and that if his firm can industrialize the method and decrease the price then most clients will select them over bigger automobiles.
As SpaceX and MaiaSpace have additionally concluded, chrome steel emerged because the logical alternative of fabric. Whereas different firms have settled on carbon composites or high-strength aluminum lithium alloys which may afford a sleeker-looking car, chrome steel permits low-cost buildings to be constructed capitalizing on present processes. The result’s a car that’s optimized for price but with a big payload capability.
RFA’s phases are constructed by an present business that already builds related tanks in massive numbers for breweries and meals processing. “In the event you make stainless tanks on this form of design with roughly one to 2 mm [thickness], you find yourself with ridiculously low prices as a result of it’s absolutely industrialized,” Brieschenk instructed NSF. “A low price of payload to orbit is achieved by a mixture of actually environment friendly motors that don’t want increase pumps, and cheap buildings that may stand up to barely larger pressures and make up for the increase pumps on the stage combustion engine.”
The present mannequin is the results of some ingenious information modeling, coding, and calculations which Brieschenk refers to as the corporate’s mathematical ‘Optimizer’. This instrument allowed the staff to evaluation some distinctive mixtures of those metal buildings and staged combustion engines. The usage of staged combustion engines removes the necessity for increase or pre-pumps on these engines, decreasing price and mass.
The instrument analyses trajectories, construction sizes, thicknesses, and totally different configurations, in opposition to an enormous price database. Briefly, it enabled them to find out the only technique to construct a rocket that maximizes payload whereas decreasing price. “We iterated actually thousands and thousands of various mixtures and that is principally the winner,” he provides.
Diagram of the RFA One car’s phases (Credit score: RFA)
RFA One
The three-stage RFA One is on the threshold of small and medium rockets, standing 30 m excessive and a couple of m in diameter. The completed car will ship round 1,300 kg to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), although the preliminary model – or minimal viable product – is a bit of shorter with much less propellant and is as an alternative able to putting roughly 500 kg of payload into SSO.
The corporate’s personal Redshift orbital switch car (OTV) will function an higher stage, putting payloads exactly into a number of designated orbits. RFA’s longer-term imaginative and prescient has the OTV probably remaining in orbit to hold out scientific missions or technical demonstrations when its main work is finished. Finally, on the finish of its life, Redshift may even be used to establish and deorbit gadgets of house particles, thus eradicating relatively than including to house junk with each mission.
The corporate is additionally planning the restoration of the rocket’s first stage sooner or later, however RFA is remaining tight-lipped concerning the particulars and can focus first on attending to orbit. “We put a whole lot of totally different expertise on the subject of tips on how to recuperate and, independently, some actually sensible brains that we make use of got here to the identical conclusion. I can’t spill the beans on how we’re doing it but it surely’s going to be tremendous thrilling.”
Considerably, RFA’s Helix engine is Europe’s first staged-combustion cycle engine designed for a rocket – the sooner German P111 having been constructed to energy fighter jets. “It’s about gasoline effectivity in a rocket engine – producing as a lot thrust as doable for the bottom quantity of gasoline consumption”, Brieschenk explains. The engine is the biggest that RFA may make merely with present processes, a lot of which come from the automotive business.
Cluster of 9 Helix engines that propel RFA One off the launch stool (Credit score: RFA)
Weighing round 200 kg, which is roughly the identical as a posh automotive engine, the Helix consumes much more gasoline – round 30 kg per second. Burning liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellant, it produces much more energy too, at 100 kilonewtons (equal to roughly half one million horsepower).
9 engines will energy the ultimate car, although solely 5 had been used on the preliminary take a look at article. There’s sufficient margin inbuilt to lose one among these engines proper from the start of flight. RFA’s optimizer additionally confirmed that the variety of motors on the primary stage will not be a robust design parameter. The payload isn’t impacted as a lot as one may assume with ten, eleven, or twelve engines, although “there are some benefits of utilizing extra if you wish to land the stage once more.” Brieschenk notes.
The second batch of motors are presently being manufactured and the corporate has constructed round 30 up to now, together with prototypes. “The engine is by far probably the most industrialized side”, he provides, “however it’s nonetheless tough to construct them”. Helix accommodates roughly 3,000 components, of which 20 to 30 are very tough to fabricate, with a number of manufacturing steps. RFA has been aware to concentrate on continuous iteration through the preliminary improvement stage when prototype designs can rapidly develop into out of date, and to not spend on industrialization too early.
Aerial view of SaxaVord spaceport on the island of Unst (Credit score: SaxaVord)
SaxaVord spaceport
RFA One’s first stage is sufficiently small to suit on a truck, which means it may be loaded in Augsburg and shipped by street and ferry to SaxaVord inside three days. A harbor is a one-hour drive away and can allow rocket our bodies as much as 4 m in diameter to be shipped wherever by sea.
The SaxaVord spaceport sits on the northernmost of a gaggle of just about 100 islands within the north of the UK, often called the Shetland Islands. House to a inhabitants of 650, the island of Unst is definitely nearer to Norway, which lies to its east, than mainland Scotland, some 80 km away.
Whereas distant, Unst advantages from some established infrastructure, and reaching the island is extra easy than many assume. Aberdeen Airport in northern Scotland is effectively linked to places together with London, and town has an in a single day ferry to mainland Shetland. From right here, SaxaVord could be reached by way of two interconnecting ferries and a few hours of driving in complete.
RFA One static hearth at SaxaVord in Could, 2024 (Credit score: Rocket Manufacturing facility Augsburg)
Established in 2017, the location was recognized in a UK authorities report as the perfect location for launches to sun-synchronous and polar orbits. Repurposing a close-by former Royal Air Power base, the spaceport already has storage, workplaces, and lodging for 120 individuals simply 5 minutes away. This permits SaxaVord to check favorably to another spaceports in that it has every thing a launch supplier may need shut by.
Ordale Airfield, close to Baltasound on the island, was constructed in 1968 by the Royal Engineers and served the transportation of oil staff between Aberdeen and offshore oil rigs. The airfield, which features a 640 m asphalt runway, has been mothballed since 1996 however SaxaVord has leased it for engine testing and floor stations. In time, it may revitalize the airfield to assist develop its house hub additional.
SaxaVord is a non-public sector firm that has benefitted from help and funding from the UK authorities, but it surely wanted to achieve success from day one. For the spaceport to be a viable launch location that different shoppers would select, the staff checked out ten years of climate information to evaluate the variety of potential launch home windows obtainable.
“Moderately than simply depend on UK specialists, we despatched the information to NASA and so they stated we have now nearly as many launch home windows as, say, Cape Canaveral.” Saxavord’s Debbie Strang instructed us. “We do get a whole lot of wind, I’m not going to disclaim it, however generally it may possibly simply blow by and it’s gone. What we don’t get is electrical storms, hurricanes, or snow. It’s inevitable there’ll be much less in winter as a result of it’s extra uncomfortable for the entire staff figuring out on web site, however it’s completely viable or else we wouldn’t have began it.”
SaxaVord will quickly have the ability to host two totally different launch suppliers, with an integration hangar as a result of be full in July. RFA has unique entry to the primary pad, named Fredo, honoring the late son of Anders Holch Povlsen, a Danish billionaire and vital investor within the spaceport challenge.
Two extra pads are additionally present process improvement, named Calum and Elizabeth. These will enable the spaceport to launch as much as 30 instances per yr throughout the present license. A further integration hanger may observe however the spaceport remains to be within the discovery section with extra launch suppliers. “Everybody has bespoke necessities”, says Strang. “While we had been hoping for some standardization, in the meanwhile we’re not seeing an enormous quantity of that. We have now extra shoppers involved in coming to us than we have now pads, so it’s figuring out which pad fits which shopper finest.”
UK-based Orbex shifted its focus from Sutherland Spaceport to SaxaVord in late 2024 and hopes to launch its Prime rocket from the spaceport within the final quarter of this yr. HyImpulse additionally plans to launch its SL1 car earlier than the yr is out. Scatsta Airport on mainland Shetland closed in 2020 however has planning permission to carry out engine testing and appropriate hangarage, which has enabled the corporate to make a begin whereas it waits for its launch license and pad.
One other British firm, Skyrora, can be ready on a license to make use of the spaceport to launch its Skylark L and Skyrora XL rockets whereas French startup Latitude additionally chosen SaxaVord to debut its Zephyr car. “Within the early days in our naivety, we imagined that some rocket launch shoppers would share a pad”, Strang notes. “That doesn’t appear to be the case – they completely do appear to need their very own however that varies and a few shoppers could be extra open”.
RFA intends to launch from Fredo, SaxaVords first launch pad (Credit score: SaxaVord)
RFA began out with eight individuals in a delivery container as a makeshift launch management heart however will quickly profit from a constructing that’s being constructed for this goal. There are not any speedy plans to construct touchdown pads for returning first phases however sustainability stays a key issue, and the spaceport is involved in opening these conversations. There are plans to construct out SaxaVord as a customer vacation spot in time, however for now, the main target is on conducting the primary few take a look at launches. The spaceport stays an ongoing development web site and, whereas there’s a well-positioned vantage level on a close-by hill overlooking the launch web site, this may be contained in the exclusion zone. A customer viewing space is, nonetheless, on the broader timeline.
Launch licenses
Spaceport Cornwall acquired the UK’s first-ever spaceport license from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in 2022 and SaxaVord acquired the UK’s first vertical launch license simply over a yr later in December 2023. This made it the primary absolutely licensed vertical spaceport in Western Europe. With no established rulebook to observe, the licensing course of took the CAA a while to arrange for SaxaVord.
“To launch a satellite tv for pc within the UK you want 4 licenses” explains Strang. Along with the one for the spaceport, “you want a license for the vary companies to ensure the airspace, the seaspace and every thing on the bottom is totally clear. We have now that license too, and that’s uncommon so far as I perceive – in different international spaceports the vary companies might be supplied by another person however we took the choice to maintain that in-house.”
Render of the RFA One ascending in flight (Credit score: RFA)
The opposite two licenses are the one held by the launch supplier, equivalent to RFA, and one other for the payload. “It’s a extremely sophisticated and, at instances, long-winded course of however for completely the fitting causes”, Strang emphasizes. “It goes manner past our operations – they have a look at each side of the enterprise to ensure we’re in a position to ship safely.”
RFA’s launch operator license was awarded by the CAA on January 16, 2025, and permits for a beneficiant 10 flights per yr. “If we get to 10 launches I’ll be the happiest particular person alive”, Brieschenk instructed NSF. “Within the first couple of years you’ll be launching just a few instances a yr, so this isn’t in any respect a limitation. That form of approval is significantly better than we had been hoping for to get at such an early stage.”
RFA One anomaly
RFA may have probably launched final yr, had it not been for an anomaly throughout a nine-engine take a look at firing of the primary stage in August 2024. The payload fairing and the second and third phases of the rocket had been all prepared and had handed their very own acceptance testing, leaving solely the primary stage to check forward of full stack integration.
Engine bay view from the 20 second scorching firing of 4 engines at SaxaVord in Could 2024 (Credit score: RFA)
“It’s essential to grasp it was a qualification take a look at” Brieschenk reiterates, “We pushed the pump to the acute fringe of the place it may function, and this turbo pump might be probably the most tough factor in a rocket, particularly if in case you have a stage combustion engine. It creates extraordinarily excessive pressures near 400 bar and if there’s any friction in it that you simply pair with pockets of gaseous oxygen, then it’s principally over. Qualification means you principally topic the stage to masses which are larger than what the stage sees in flight. That is key to creating profitable house {hardware} – you at all times take a look at it manner more durable than what you will note on flight day.”
With the stage barely full of propellant, this course of exerts a whole lot of structural load on the stage and, sadly, one of many liquid oxygen turbopumps exploded, ensuing within the lack of the {hardware}. The hearth suppression system didn’t kick in as rapidly because it wanted to, which Brieschenk cites as the largest studying end result from the anomaly. One of many burnt engines greets him on daily basis he walks into the RFA constructing as a stark, but motivational reminder.
The spaceport was, paradoxically, as a result of run an engine hearth train in September as a part of its common quarterly contingency planning however the anomaly introduced this specific situation ahead by a month. “It’s not till you actually do it that you simply take a look at it, and you discover it nonetheless must evolve.” Strang factors out. “No person was inside 500 meters of the launch stall so no person was in danger. The launch pad wasn’t broken in any manner which simply goes to credit score our development staff who put the concrete in.”
280-second full length testing of the higher stage Helix vacuum engine in Augsberg June 2023 (Credit score: RFA)
“This occurred at about 8 PM and it’s on the information by 10 however we had been completely delighted with the best way it was reported as a result of the press perceive that is what occurs in house. Really, it’s elevated SaxaVord spaceport onto the world stage however we realized an enormous quantity.”
Though the hearth rapidly engulfed the pad, it was principally gasoline combusting. The pad has predominantly a metal construction which remained undamaged. “We misplaced little or no on the launch aspect”, provides Brieschenk, noting that, whereas cabling and harnessing had been misplaced, an umbilical tower had not but been constructed, for instance. “We truly saved some huge cash not constructing a separate first stage take a look at web site. We constructed up the pad to a degree the place it’s simply adequate for a primary stage take a look at.”
To its credit score, RFA swiftly produced an in depth and really clear video outlining the teachings realized from the anomaly. In consequence, a lot of small tweaks have been applied, which mix to make the car extra resilient. Many of those are with the flight laptop software program that controls a mess of valves and vents because the car fills with propellant and presses itself.
Diagram of Rocket Manufacturing facility Augsburg’s Redshift OTV (Credit score: RFA)
“We wish to be sure these operations are as bulletproof as doable and that requires a whole lot of coding and the system to work collectively autonomously.” Brieschenk highlights. “Plenty of these methods acquired small tweaks to make them extra strong. Total, what we have now now’s a much-improved product – I consider it’s considerably higher.”
RFA will quickly be igniting all 9 engines in a much less excessive first stage take a look at, earlier than progressing to its debut flight. Two extra first phases are presently in manufacturing, and the primary will ship from Germany in Could. The design permits for engines to be built-in throughout the next two months in situ, whereas the stage sits on the pad at SaxaVord.
There’s no actual launch window set however the firm expects its maiden launch between six and eight months from now. “We wish to fly undoubtedly this yr – that is the aim”, asserts Brieschenk. “We wish to go to orbit on this primary try.”
(Lead picture: Render of the RFA One car launching from SaxaVord spaceport – Credit score: Rocket Manufacturing facility Augsburg)
