Rocket company on brink of collapse despite £26m taxpayer loan

Matthew Field

Wed 11 February 2026 at 10:03 pm GMT+9 2 min read

Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, approved £20m in government loans to Orbex in January last year - Orbex

One of Britain’s only space rocket businesses is at risk of collapse despite being handed £26m in taxpayer loans just last year.

Orbex, a Scottish start-up that had been hoping to launch the first UK rocket from home soil, is lining up administrators in the event that it fails to secure a rescue deal.

The business filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators on Wednesday, putting around 150 jobs under threat and throwing Britain’s space ambitions into doubt.

Orbex had hoped to launch a rocket, called Prime, from a base on the Shetland Islands last year. It would have been the first space launch from the UK since Virgin Orbit’s failed mission in 2023.

However, the Prime launch was repeatedly delayed, and last month it emerged that Orbex was in merger talks with The Exploration Company, a German space business.

A source on Wednesday said the deal with The Exploration Company appeared to be “dead”.

Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, approved £20m of government loans to Orbex in January 2025, hailing the business as a “unique opportunity” that would bring “prestige” to Britain’s space industry.

The Government’s investment in Orbex was made in the form of taxpayer loans that could have been converted into equity.

However, Orbex subsequently struggled to raise any more private investment, despite having previously secured more than £100m from investors.

Last year, it confirmed it was targeting raising more than £120m to fund the development of its launch vehicle.

The Government invested a further £6m in Orbex last summer as the rocket business attempted to bid for a pool of tens of millions of pounds in funding from the European Space Agency to build a new launcher.

In November, the space agency earmarked a tranche of funding for Orbex, but that cash was put on hold as it scrambled to secure further investment or a buyer.

The Telegraph previously revealed that Orbex had been in talks to secure cash from Rachel Reeves’s National Wealth Fund, but those talks fell through in November.

The collapse of Orbex serves as a damaging blow to Britain’s space ambitions, extinguishing hopes that the UK could offer a European alternative to Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launches.

Orbex was one of a handful of companies hoping to launch from Saxavord, a base on the Shetland Islands. Other businesses, including Germany’s RFA and Skyrora, a Scottish start-up, are still targeting UK launches.

An Orbex spokesman declined to comment.

條款 及 私隱政策

Privacy dashboard