Highlands and Islands Enterprise buys Sutherland Spaceport assets from Orbex liquidators
Orbex
Scotland's HIE bought the liquidated Sutherland Spaceport's assets, keeping the UK launch site's future open after Orbex's collapse.
what happened
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), a Scottish Government economic development agency, announced Aug. 25 that it has acquired the assets of Sutherland Spaceport Ltd from joint liquidators Chad Griffin and Graham Smith of FRP Advisory, per HIE's own release and European Spaceflight. Sutherland Spaceport Ltd was a subsidiary Orbex set up in 2020 to build a vertical-launch site on a 10.4-acre site on the A' Mhoine peninsula near Tongue; Orbex entered administration in February 2026 after failed Series D funding talks and a collapsed acquisition, and the spaceport subsidiary was compulsorily liquidated in June. No purchase price was disclosed. HIE said it will work with the local community and space-sector players on how to use the site, which already has a completed 2.5km floating access road across peatland.
why it matters
Sutherland was one of the UK's flagship vertical-launch sites before Orbex paused construction in December 2024 and then collapsed entirely; public ownership by a Scottish development agency keeps the site available for another UK or European launcher rather than letting the infrastructure go idle or be broken up piecemeal. It's a data point for how European spaceport backers are managing the fallout of the small-launcher shakeout that also claimed Orbex and pressured peers including Skyrora.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Orbex
- Category
- launch
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 3 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-08-25
- Published
- 2026-08-30 21:46 UTC