{"id":618003,"date":"2026-09-08T08:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/618003\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T08:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:04:09","slug":"uk-government-invests-30m-in-shetland-spaceport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/618003\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government invests \u00a330m in Shetland spaceport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">SaxaVord Spaceport has confirmed that it is in discussions with other companies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The UK government said the new space strategy would &#8220;drive growth, strengthen security and back the technologies that underpin modern life&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ministers said they wanted to create jobs and help Britain and its partners launch satellites without relying on countries &#8220;further afield&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The money for the Shetland project is part of a \u00a3148m investment across Europe which ministers said would help UK space technology firms secure more work. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said: &#8220;Scotland already builds more satellites than anywhere else in Europe, and with a \u00a330m UK government investment boost, SaxaVord is now poised to deliver up to three-quarters of the continent&#8217;s orbital launch slots.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added that defence, security and economic growth were at the heart of the plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lise Kaae, chief executive of Heartland, which has a majority stake in SaxaVord Spaceport through its investment arm Wild Ventures, said: &#8220;We are very pleased to welcome the UK government as an investor and partner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The investment is subject to due diligence and final sign-off. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SaxaVord Spaceport has confirmed that it is in discussions with other companies. The UK government said the new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-618003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}