Historic space launch in the United Kingdom postponed

The German company Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has announced the detection of a defect in the design of its RFA One carrier rocket. According to Ixbt.com, the fully assembled 30-meter rocket at the SaxaVord spaceport in Scotland will be disassembled to fix the issue. This is reported by Ixbt.com reports .

Specialists plan to separate the three-stage rocket body and conduct a thorough inspection of all systems. This decision was made due to a technical issue that arose during the testing of the rocket engines.

Tests and technical hurdles

This incident occurred during the preparation stage for hot-fire tests of the rocket engines, shortly after the device successfully passed its first working pressure test. The company had planned to put the engines through rigorous testing ahead of the launch window opening on August 10 of this year.

RFA One is a three-stage rocket capable of delivering up to 1,300 kg of payload to a sun-synchronous orbit. In this orbit, satellites pass over every point on Earth at approximately the same local time.

Historical significance and future plans

If this rocket is successfully launched into space, it will be the first successful attempt in history to launch satellites into orbit from the territory of the United Kingdom. Therefore, the project is of great importance for the European space industry.

However, this is not the first difficulty the RFA program has faced. As a reminder, in August 2024, during tests at the SaxaVord spaceport, a fire broke out in a previous prototype of the rocket, ending in an explosion.

Currently, company engineers are working to quickly fix the identified defect and maintain a new launch window within the scheduled deadlines.