North Uist – The forgotten Scottish rocket launch site

While there are a handful of UK launch sites that have been fairly vocal and in many cases attracting significant media attention, there are others that have stayed quite firmly under the radar including the vertical launch site at North Uist in the Western Isles.

This is despite the site attracting a hugely negative level of opposition from locals and environmental groups including the RSPB. None of this has hindered the site’s planning application for suborbital flights.

It does remain one of the most promising launch sites from Scotland with its fairly clear line of sight northwards without any populated landmasses on route to orbit.

It certainly hasn’t had much attention from the UK government or any noticeable major players from the space industry.

There could, however, be logistical obstacles making it more difficult to get major pieces of hardware onto the island that make it a less attractive option.

But, what is more important is that one of the main obstacles has been overcome – they have been given planning permission.

https://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/controversial-north-uist-spaceport-given-planning-greenlight

That was back in July 2023 and there hasn’t really been much news coming from the island since.

We shall keep a close eye on this one.