Rocket firm takes on new HQ space

Rocket builder Orbex is expanding its Moray operations with a move into a building close to its HQ. The company’s chief executive, Chris Larmour, said it needed the extra space for its growing workforce and to house new equipment.

The firm is also working on a detailed planning application for a new factory that could create hundreds of jobs.

Orbex, which aims to start launching its Prime mini-satellite-carrying rockets from the planned Space Hub Sutherland spaceport next year, opened a base at Forres Enterprise Park in 2019.

The firm now employs around 100 people, mostly based at its Moray facility.

It plans to move into the vacant building, which will provide more than 10,700sq ft of extra space, in the coming weeks.

As well as its facilities in Forres, the firm has a test site at nearby Kinloss Barracks.

Mr Larmour said: “The unit across the road from our current factory became available and we are taking it on from mid-September.

“There is office space there and two big workshops.

“In one of them we’re going to put in a massive new autoclave: that’s a carbon fibre pressure cooker, effectively.

“The main rockets will be integrated there before they are moved to our Kinloss site.”

He added that “bizarrely” one of the biggest issues the company faced in the move was difficulty sourcing office desks and chairs, because of the ongoing supply chain problems throughout the UK.

Plans by Orbex to build a new factory at the enterprise park, creating up to 300 jobs, first emerged late last year.

Mr Larmour added: “We’ve already put in the outline planning notice and we are working on the details of that now.

“If that all goes ahead that will be several hundred employees in that building, which will be significant locally.”

Orbex aims to start launching rockets from the planned spaceport on the A’Mhoine peninsula, in Sutherland, by the end of next year.

Last month a legal challenge to the planning approval to develop the site was rejected in the Court of Session, after a judicial review.

In the wake of that ruling, Mr Larmour said: “The countdown to space launch from the UK can begin.”

He also welcomed an announcement last week by the European Space Agency (ESA) that it will let firms such as Orbex bid to launch its satellite payloads.

He said it was “really good news” as previously these were carried by the ESA’s Ariane rockets.

Earlier this year Orbex secured more than £6 million from the ESA Boost! Programme to help develop its launch vehicle.

HIGH FLYER: One of Orbex’s Prime mini-satellite-carrying rockets, which would be launched from Sutherland.

Orbex CEO Chris Larmour at the Forres facility’s opening.