Final preparations are underway in Cornwall for the first space launch from UK soil.
Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747, called Cosmic Girl, will take off from Spaceport Cornwall to deploy a rocket mid-air for launch into low Earth orbit within weeks.
The window opens on October 29, but the team is aiming for take-off within the first half of November.
The rocket will be carrying eight shoebox-sized satellites, which will perform a variety of tasks for customers including Oman and the US and UK militaries.
“They are all doing lots of different things,” said Melissa Thorpe, chief executive of Spaceport Cornwall.
“We have a satellite that’s looking at monitoring illegal fishing off the coast of the UK. We have one that’s looking at how we can manufacture products in space, in orbit, rather than here on Earth.
“We have the military looking at GPS and navigation for our forces overseas. And then we have one that’s doing quite a lot of weather monitoring, again for our forces.
“The Omani satellite is going to be helping us with climate change,” she added.
A few are even coming from within the UK.
“That is really exciting for us because that’s the whole reason we are here, to service this amazing satellite industry that we have already here, which has never been able to launch before,” said Ms Thorpe.
“That’s huge for us to be able to offer that to them. Instead of getting shipped overseas, they can get on a lorry and come down the M5 for the first time.”
Work is under way to load the satellites onto the rocket at the spaceport’s newly inaugurated Space Systems Integration Facility.
So far only the Omani satellite has been integrated, but the others will follow within the next week.
“Integration basically means a satellite arrives at the facility where there is something called the clean room, which is a very sterile environment where the satellites get put inside the fairing of the rocket,” said Ms Thorpe.
“So in this case, it is basically the nose cone of the rocket that splits open almost like a clamshell. And the satellites are put into the fairing and then that rocket is then encapsulated, which means closed and secured, ready to go up to space.”
Once complete, the spaceport will turn its attention to further projects with Virgin Orbit, among other opportunities.
“We are also working with another company called Sierra Space and the Dream Chaser operation, which is almost like a shuttle, where it would take off vertically, go up to space and come back down. We are going to be a landing site for them in the future,” said Ms Thorpe.
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The Little Things
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto
Four stars
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Super 30
Produced: Sajid Nadiadwala and Phantom Productions
Directed: Vikas Bahl
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Srivastav, Mrinal Thakur
Rating: 3.5 /5
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Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
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Coffee: black death or elixir of life?
It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?
Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.
The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.
Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver.
The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.
But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.
Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.
It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.
So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.
Rory Reynolds
