UK-based launch startup Skyrora announced this morning that the company has moved into a new facility in Cumbernauld, Scotland. Wasting little time settling in, the company also revealed that the production of three vehicles has already underway in the new facility.
The Skyrora Vehicle Assembly Building includes 55,000 square feet (5,100 square metres) of factory floor and office space. It also offers a 67,000-square-foot “yard” that will be utilised for rehearsals, integration activities, and launch preparation for both its orbital Skyrora XL and suborbital Skylark L missions. This marks a huge step for Skyrora having moved from a comparatively tiny 2,000-square-foot facility.
“This purpose-built manufacturing and assembly site, combined with the Midlothian testing facility, allows Skyrora to take direct charge of the development cycle in-house,” said Skyrora’s head of engineering Dr. Jack James Marlow. “As a business, we now have a full set of domestic facilities to allow for close control of the quality and rapid development and testing of Skyrora XL ahead of its demo launch.”
The new facility will allow the company to bring many operations it would have otherwise outsourced in-house, operations that include full-stage structural and pressure testing and full-stage functional and cold flow testing. The facility will also house the UK’s largest metal 3D printer, which the company will utalise to produce many key components of its Skyforce rocket engines.
According to Skyrora, the company is currently working on two Skylark L vehicles and the second third stage of a Skyrora XL vehicle in the new facility.
The Cumbernauld facility will be capable of producing up to 16 vehicles per year. It did, however, not specify if that was 16 Skyrora XL vehicles per year or a mix of Skyrora XL and Skylark L vehicles. It will also offer as many as 100 high-skilled employment opportunities. The company hopes to fill the 100 additional positions within the next two years bumping up the number of employees to 260.
