Highlights of the UK Space Conference 2019

30th Sep 2019
Highlights of the UK Space Conference 2019

Last week’s UK Space Conference brought about a number of fairly major announcements from the UK Space Agency as well as from commercial operators.

The UK Space Agency announced that they were working on a hypersonic aircraft that could travel from London to Sydney, Australia in four hours along with Oxford-based company, Reaction Engines.

The so-called, Sabre engine will be twice as powerful as the engine that was used in Concorde and will apparently reach New York in 1 hour from the UK mainland, whilst also using much greener and cheaper technology.

The UK Space Agency also announced its recruitment drive to find a new astronaut to send up to the International Space Station.

There was also an announcement that the UK Space Agency and its Australian counterpart had come to an agreement to create a “Space Bridge” between the two countries. Although this arrangement caused some confusion as it mostly suggested that the so-called “Space Bridge” was just a term being used for “Collaboration”

Also, during the UK Space Conference, the Edinburgh-based launch company, Skyrora Ltd., announced their development of a new type of 3D printer that they described as a “Hybrid 3D Printing Machine”.

Skyrora also had their unique Turbo Pump and one of their smaller rocket engines on display.

https://www.bqlive.co.uk/engineering/2019/09/25/news/skyrora-creates-a-stir-at-uk-space-conference-36332/

The 3 day-long event that was held in Wales also revealed that a site in Snowdonia was to receive UKSA funding to build a horizontal launch pad, competing with the proposed launchpad in Cornwall that is being used by Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit.

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