Safe flight to RFA, Alba Oribtal and all the others. Is there any news about Sutherland? Will it continue to be worked on or will Saxovord be the only working launch site?

Great news Tom, let's hope the new year will be a busy one!👍👍 🚀🚀

Amazing new vid Tom, 2025 will definetely be the year for UK spaceflight and I cannot wait for orbex prime, and other British rocket companies unveil their amazing rockets.

Aloha, Tom! Mahalo for bringing all the GREAT news from Scotland and the UK! I want all those Scottish launches to work out, pronto. All that paperwork... The CAA process more paperwork in a day, probably, than all the public toilets in Glasgow workin' full tilt in a year! The idea that ANYONE who wants to launch a payload into space can just do so is just mindboggling. Can you imagine all the STEM classes full of students placing their school experiments on a UK rocket to hurl into space? Fantastic! Hope you enjoyed your holidays with family and friends. Hope you're all recharge and rarin' to go for 2025. It's certainly been a busy couple of days in Florida and Texas. Even Hawai'i is trying to get OUT of the act. Residents don't want Elon splashing down any Starship test flights within a hundred kilometres of the islands. After today's...um...performance, I begin to see their point.😆🤣 Take care, Tom!

Happy New Year Tom. Thanks for bringing all the latest UK space news together into one place. I'm quietly confident of a launch from UK soil at some point in 2025🤞

At the current rate of progress there will be no launches his decade either.

Hey Tom, thank you and all the best to you too. Hope you have a good time.

Loving the beard mate!

Have a great 2025

Merry Christmas chap

And a Mele Kalikimaka to you, too, Tom!

UK is on its knees in so many areas. Healthcare education infrastructure trade. Why in the world would the UK invest huge amounts of upfront money when there's many other options to collaborate with other nations and corporations like SpaceX with the need for expensive infrastructure? In addition to the lauch systems an entire supply chain must be built. Didn't the ego arrogance hubr5of the foolish Brexit catastrophe teach the Brits anything? Your citizens are hurting and in need of better opportunities for education etc. I just don't understand how UKs leaders ignore reality while pursuing crazy expensive unnecessary nationalistic chest beating projects?

Great video ! Will subscribe….

You’re missing the point I think….. I reckon it’s because of the failure of ABL Space in the US who were the main customer for SaxaVord with lots of launch contracts from Lockheed Martin. Together with delays at RFA this means that SaxaVord really need continuous progress and revenue, so this is (for now) the best solution. Sutherland could return…. But for now we need to get everything running smoothly at Saxavord in terms of operational practices and licences. As for HyImpulse, similarly they got a sweet convenient deal from Australia and their new Spaceport so it suited everyone. There was a big interview with HyImpulse on NasaSpaceflight this week.

Britain is far too buried in bureaucracy and PC nonsense (see early order video) to ever have a successful space program, let alone one that is cutting edge. Britain desperately needs a revolution before it's people will ever accomplish anything of significance again.

Very interesting video. I learnt a great deal. Look forward to the next one.

Another UK flop. Good at hype, bad on delivery. Orbex has to repay all the funding they got from the Scottish Govt. This smacks of fraud.

Hi Nice to see you again Do you remember me? 😅 So many delays 😭 Don't know what what will happen in 2025...

They've said that they are going to use Saxavord for *now*. That's not the same as scrapping Sutherland altogether. They still have the lease. It might yet go ahead. To be honest, it makes sense to use Saxavord initially because it means they can focus on the rocket rather than the space port.

I'm not surprised, there are better alternatives.

It's just one of those things. Companies go bust, struggle, pull back, when stuff is leading edge. The UK needs to keep at it, keep looking for inward investors, and broaden activities at each site. Both Newquay and Sutherland are great sites. Let's see more partnerships.

Well done Tom, you really put your all into this and it shows! And I had no idea that Britain had such a long-lived rocket program. Blue Streak lives on, thanks Tom!🚀🚀👍👍

That's a bummer about Sutherland Tom, hopefully it will get back on track at some point. The more UK spaceports the better!🚀🚀👍👍

Amazing new video mate, it is disappointing there wasnt any launches this year, but I definitely think next year will be the year for UK spaceflight. I think Orbex making the decision to move to Saxavord is a good thing since it gives them more time to work on proxima and prime, it is sad to see they wont be launching from Sutherland at the moment though, but some sacrifices have to be made, and now saxavord and orbex, one of the two biggest rivals have partnered up, United together!

(sigh...) Is it ennui? Is it malaise? Are they hunkering down for the winter season and waiting for the spring thaw? Mahalo, Tom for a very in-depth analysis of this seemingly irrational series of changes within the British spaceflight community. The lack of openness on their part is very frustrating. The only thing those poor folks in Sutherland got maybe were a few nice, new access roads to help them get at more peat for their local industries. Otherwise...they appear to have gotten the rug pulled out from under them. Frankly, I'm amazed that RFA, from the outside looking in, seem to be far MORE discouraged in their efforts following that setback a few months ago with that explosion at Saxavord. I wish you and your family a Mele Kalikimaka and Hau'oli Makahiki Hou. Let's hope there's more successful 2025 "rocket season" ahead! Aloha!

It's a bit concerning that funding already obtained by Orbex has resulted in a dead end at Sutherland. My biggest hopes for UK launch next year remain with RFA. Thanks for all your coverage this year, Tom. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Great video. There's alot of questions that remain unanswered around these subjects. The total abandonment of a site is pretty significant. I see that Saxavord is now posting Insta videos about combining Shetland GINs, which is a strange move for additional funding.

Awesome.... a NEW Space KZbinr on the scene . So awesome to see you back sir. Great update as always. What a shock this was to hear Orbex's announcement.

lol these are going bankrupt

Great content, but I believe there was some contradictive in the summary that was as confusing as the morons from Hylmpulse actually callingit Hylmpulse and SL1. It's like they want to be chinese :p

The simple truth of all this is that NASA owns space blue and derivative there of,would never see the light of day remember the beagle probe to mars early 2000s which Died on the martian surface which was never really resolved no ladies and gents the Brits were never going to the moon besides there was no one to give it back to when we had finished with it😮😅😊

muchly appreciated to learn more about my dad's work in 1964 in Stevenage with DeHavillan before he immigrated to Australia after they cancelled the program

Lot of pompous, imperial mythology, not much of the common sense and technological reality... Reason, why Britain went into the dead end street...

most exalant vid . for anyone wanting to see a BlueSteak there are still a few left .The space center in leister has one ,theres also a complete euopa in toulous in france .Carlise airmusium have a large section on open display(still has its turbo pumps ).East fortune air musium also have some parts (but the last i heard they are not on public displayas under conservation . ) theres also Blackarrow 2 of which can be seen in the uk ,one is in the science musium in london the othe at farnburgh in the speed exobition .Also worth haveing a look in the Rolls Royce hall in Derbey they have several engines used at spadeaddamfor tests and a complete motor assembly for a blackarrow . .that to the best of my knowlege is all thats left in the uk in fact your better going down under to see more uk rockets

I have to disagree with your claim that Ariane was derived from Blue Streak. Yes, the Ariane 1 first stage is a cylinder with a cone on top. That configuration is very common for rocket stages, and so general that you can't claim inheritance. The RZ-2 engine has no lineage to the Vikings used on Ariane 1. They use different fuels. Viking development started in 1965 at SEP in France, when the Europa 1 project was just getting started. The only commonality between Ariane 1 and Blue Streak I can find is the use of stainless steel for the construction of the first stage.

It's sad that we gave up our space program to buy them from the yanks. We're the only country to build an orbital rocket and then retire that capability.

Well done! One of my favorite facets of your video how you speak of Blue Streak so lovingly. I feel that same love now. Thank you.

This is very Polyus studio and that's really not a bad thing at all. Subbed ;-)

Woomera is in South Australia. There is no place here called Southern Australia.

Imagine if Bluestreak could have been made reusable like the Kistler reusable vehicle, where the Bluestreak 1st stage lands on its side with the help of air-bags and parachutes.

I was posted to the IAM Farnborough 1956 living in the Grange Hostel. An exciting time.

So sad how the British lost so much ground in space launching.

An excellent documentary - well done for highlighting Geoffrey Pardoe's contribution to the aerospace industry (admired his measured overview of the American space efforts). He is remembered by the Space award the RAes presents that bears his name.

Very good, but please remove the intrusive synthetic muzak.

finally, someone makes a decent documentary of Blue Streak and black prince. well done

Excellent job

I would suggest watching the video by Alexander the OK of the black arrow, in case someone wants more engineering details. Amazing video sire! Thank you ver much

What an excellent presentation! Thank you!

Yet another example of politicians destroying the UK.