HRH The Princess Royal was at Goonhilly Earth Station on Friday to learn about Cornwall’s pioneering place in the evolution of the UK space industry.
As part of the visit, The Princess Royal was able to hear about Goonhilly’s upcoming support for NASA’s pivotal Artemis-I Mission, which is due to launch next month and will mark the beginning of a new phase of lunar exploration.
As part of the mission, Goonhilly will be responsible for tracking the uncrewed Orion capsule and, alongside partner ESA, communicating with a number of small satellites being launched on the mission.
As well as this, Goonhilly is a partner in the UK’s first orbital space launch, due to also take place in November from Spaceport Cornwall. It is supporting the historic ‘Start Me Up’ mission by conducting mission readiness testing in the lead up to launch, as well as providing live telemetry data to Virgin Orbit during the mission itself – tracking Cosmic Girl, Virgin Orbit’s launch carrier aircraft, as the crew release the LauncherOne rocket.
Ian Jones, CEO at Goonhilly Earth Station said: “Welcoming The Princess Royal in our 60th year offered an opportunity to shine a light on the exciting space activity happening here in Cornwall and the cluster development we have been able to stimulate. We want to help define a new era of UK space exploration and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers from home soil.”
