A UK Government minister has signalled that Kinloss Barracks could become the country’s first spaceport within five years.
Plans to turn the region into the centre Britain’s lucrative space industry have taken a “big step forward” after the Westminster coalition backed calls to create a spaceport by 2018.
The target was set this week by trade body UK Space – and Science Minister David Willetts said the government was “absolutely up for supporting that development”.
The Conservative also dropped a heavy hint that the Kinloss base was being considered, saying he could “imagine a location in Scotland where RAF bases are moving away”, where “you could launch vehicles across the North Sea”.
UK ministers previously earmarked RAF Lossiemouth as a preferred location for a spaceport and the site was being eyed by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company as a potential launch site for space tourism in Europe.
It is understood that the decision to retain Lossiemouth as an RAF base and move Typhoon fast-jet squadrons there from next year has made this less likely.
However, there is plenty of spare capacity at nearby Kinloss, with just about 700 Army engineers occupying the 1,828-acre estate, compared with 1,570 RAF personnel and the Nimrod fleet before 2011.
The UK Government has also confirmed it is considering selling off or leasing part of the Kinloss base to the private sector.
Satellites could be launched from the new spaceport, opening up major opportunities for the region and country to cash in on the £400billion space industry.
Mr Willetts hopes that Virgin Galactic can also still be convinced to base its European space-tourism business there, although a launch site in Sweden has also been proposed.
At an industry forum, the minister said: “I like the ambition for a UK spaceport by 2018. We are absolutely up for supporting that development.”
He added: “You could imagine a location in Scotland where RAF bases that they are moving away from, where you could launch vehicles across the North Sea.”
George Fraser, director of the Space Research Centre at Leicester University, said Kinloss would be the obvious location.
He believed the former RAF site at Leuchars in Fife would not be suitable as any malfunction could lead to a space vehicle falling on populated areas, including Dundee or Aberdeen.
The expert said there would be concerns about other potential sites as well, with any launches from north Caithness posing a potential threat to Orkney and Shetland, and north Norfolk has been ruled out because of offshore installations.
Mr Willetts is due to respond in January to a report by UK Space on the prospects for the UK space industry, but a source in his department said last night he was convinced a spaceport was “definitely something we should be looking at”.
Angus Robertson, SNP MP for Moray said: “The possibility of a spaceport in Moray has been on the cards for some time, indeed the president of Virgin Galactic came up to Moray to speak about the positive view Virgin had of siting such a facility in Moray.
“In the past, Lossiemouth has been the focus of attention and it seems that Kinloss may be taking centre stage in this debate due to the changing defence roles of the bases, but either way this is a major economic prospect for Moray and would undoubtedly be a catalyst for a broad range of technology investment.”