At the same time, the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has dramatically curtailed Russia's capacity to conduct missions as the number of launches from its soil has fallen from 339 in 2021 to just 19 in 2023 and 17 in 2024. Europe has been particularly impacted by this.

Scotland's space industry prepares to go into orbit

Meanwhile Donald Trump 's "America First" policies and the US President's fall-out with Elon Musk of SpaceX have injected renewed vigour into the race to ramp up independent launch capabilities in Europe.

At the moment the continent's only spaceport is in the South American region of French Guiana, more than 4,000 miles from Paris. Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully launched from there earlier this year, more than 10 years after it was commissioned and five

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