LONDON, Jan 9, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Final preparations were under way Monday for 
the first rocket launch from UK soil, catapulting it into the "exclusive" 
club of nine nations able to send crafts into Earth's orbit.

A repurposed Boeing 747 carrying the 70-foot (21-metre) rocket containing 
nine satellites will take off from a spaceport in Cornwall, southwest 
England, at 2216 GMT.

The rocket will detach from the aircraft at a height of 35,000 feet over the 
Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland before later discharging the 
satellites.

The aircraft will then return to Spaceport Cornwall, a consortium that 
includes Virgin Orbit and the UK Space Agency, at Cornwall Airport Newquay.

The launch will be the first from UK soil. UK-produced satellites have 
previously had to be sent into orbit via foreign spaceports.

"Joining that really exclusive club of launch nations is so important because 
it gives us our own access to space... that we've never had before here in 
the UK," Spaceport Cornwall chief Melissa Thorpe told BBC television on 
Monday.

Over 2,000 people are expected to watch the launch named "Start Me Up" after 
the Rolling Stones song.

"There's two stages to it... two bits of excitement, really, the takeoff and 
then the deployment of the rocket," Thorpe added.

The satellites have a variety of civil and defence functions from sea 
monitoring that will help countries detect people smugglers trafficking 
migrants to space weather observation.

Although scheduled for Monday evening, adverse weather conditions could see 
the launch delayed or postponed to back-up dates later in January.

The number of space bases in Europe has grown in recent years due to the 
commercialisation of space.

For a long time, satellites were primarily used for institutional missions by 
national space agencies but most of Europe's spaceport projects are now 
private sector initiatives.

The market has exploded with the emergence of small start-ups, modern 
technology making both rockets and satellites smaller, and the rapidly 
growing number of applications for satellites. 

Some 18,500 small satellites -- those weighing less than 500 kilograms (1,100 
pounds) -- are expected to be launched between 2022 and 2031, compared to 
4,600 in the previous decade.