Orbex welcomes Boost! contract extension and additional funding of €5.6m

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Orbex is aiming to conduct its first orbital rocket launch as early as next year, and today the company announced it closed £40.4 million ($46.1 million) in funding to power its final push there. The company rolled out its first full-scale prototype of the orbital rocket back in May, calling it the “first of a new generation” of launch vehicles capable of carrying very small satellites to space. The Scotland-based company is currently in the midst of a testing campaign in advance of its first launch in 2023, which will carry an experimental payload from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.The company said in a statement that this new Series C funding will enable it to scale its resources and support future endeavors. Orbex is developing a 19-meter (62 foot), two-stage microlauncher called Prime. Orbex says this will reduce the carbon emissions of launch by up to 96% compared to rockets of a similar size. Spaceflight startup Orbex is part of a slew of U.K.-based companies hoping to change that by bringing vertical launch to U.K. soil for the first time. Prominent ministers from the Scottish and U.K. parliaments applauded the funding, with the U.K. Science Minister Nusrat Ghani calling it a “vote of confidence” in the country’s “ambitious plans to make the U.K. one of the most innovative and attractive space economies in the world, supporting long-term economic growth.”Orbex was one of two companies selected by the U.K. government in 2018 to perform launches at a new facility, the Space Hub Sutherland Spaceport on the north coast of Scotland.