Nine engines, 50,000 liters of fuel, 7 metric tons of thrust, and a velocity of nearly 8 kilometers a second are needed to launch a rocket into orbit. For Skyrora, a private launch-vehicle provider based in Scotland, that’s just step one.
Rather than passengers, its payload is satellites. “Satellite data was once predominantly used for government security,” says Volodymyr Levykin, the company’s founder and CEO. “Now, private companies are trying to have the same capabilities to have next-level communication and observation.”
If the old Space Race was between rival nations to prove technological superiority, the next is being waged by competing businesses for profit. “Elon Musk has pioneered the private space
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