The Responsive Microlauncher Service is a £1.6 million research project aimed at providing end-to-end delivery of payloads in orbit through a series of small rockets that will be launched regularly from UK starting from 2022.
Founded by the European Space Agency under the Boost! Project, ESA’s Commercial Space Transportation Services and Support Programme, the project focuses on logistics coordination and process standardization between different European spaceports and launch providers, an essential first step towards the kind of standardization that we now take for granted in the aviation industry.
The service, based at the Spaceport Cornwall Centre for Space Technologies, will provide, for every given satellite or payload, the optimal microlauncher-spaceport combination that is compatible with the satellite’s dimensions, its operational orbit, and the desired launch window. D-Orbit will act as the main point of contact between satellite operators and launch operators, acting as a gateway in collaboration with other spaceports across the UK and Europe.