By Peter Tremayne

Job creation at the Cornwall Space Cluster appears to be getting off to an extremely sluggish start, more than a month after the £5.2 million building declared itself open for business and despite near give-away prices to use its “hot desk” facilities.

A Freedom of Information answer reveals that despite a high-profile media launch on 27th April, declaring the Space Systems Operation Facility (SSOF) “open for business,” fully-tenanted and “aiming for the stars” it was in fact still not open by 28th April and the total number of jobs associated with the project at that time was still zero.  Space Cluster jobs FOI answer

The official “rate-card” for hiring a hot-desk at the SSOF is only £150 per month – equivalent to £5 per day.

As a business address, the SSOF is extremely valuable when it comes to grant-applications.  A hot desk on its own, however, will not allow companies to seek any exemption from business rates.

But the hot desks’ rate card does include a dedicated car parking space, which means it is cheaper to hire a hot-desk at the SSOF simply for the car parking than it is to use the official Newquay Airport car park.  A hot-desk also includes internet, power and use of the toilets and coffee and tea making area.

As a business model, it is hard to see how Cornwall Council hopes to ever recover the £5.2 million construction costs.  It looks remarkably similar to the £9 million “Enterprise Space for Advanced Engineering” near to the new Carclaze housing estate in Cornwall’s china clay area.  Declared open in 2018 it is still not fully occupied.

On 4th May Cornwall Reports identified the likely occupants of the SSOF.  It is possible that some might sign contracts and move in this week.  The FOI answer says the council hopes that the SSOF will, by the end of July, be a home to 30 jobs.

But not counting the one-off construction jobs, those SSOF jobs will have cost the taxpayer more than £173,000 each.  Asked to estimate how many jobs would have been created at the SSOF by the end of the year Cornwall Council’s FOI answer says it does not know.

County Hall says it is still sticking by its latest promise of 150 jobs by 2025.  In 2019 the council promised 150 jobs “immediately.”

The FOI answer says the total number of jobs associated with all aspects of the Cornwall Spaceport adventure is now eight, with the position of “director” now presumably vacant following the departure of Melissa Quinn last week.  County Hall does not yet appear to have advertised for a replacement but is in the process of transferring all spaceport staff to Corserv, where they will then become part of the Newquay Airport workforce.

Next week SSOF staff head for Farnborough to take part in another marketing exhibition.  Cornwall Council’s cabinet recently voted another £510,000 in revenue expenditure to fund this sort of activity for the next two years.

The FOI answer concludes:  “Cornwall offers space sector companies a unique opportunity to partner with the UK’s first operational spaceport, Goonhilly Earth Station, and the fast growing Cornwall Space Cluster.

“Cornwall is the only location in the UK that offers every part of the overall space ecosystem, from launch, manufacture, TT&C (Telemetry, Tracking and Control), to data downlink and application exploitation.”

The Civil Aviation Authority Cornwall Spaceport licence permits only two launch attempts per year and was specific to Virgin Orbit’s failed technology.  Space accident investigators are continuing their inquiries into January’s crash but the status of the licence beyond the end of this year is uncertain.

The next “safety case” seems certain to be subject to a more rigorous examination than the last one, making it likely that any licence application would be refused unless someone invents a new technology which does not rely on a highly-explosive propellant fuel.

Meanwhile the recently-departed Mrs Quinn has told a US website that her resignation as the boss of Cornwall’s Spaceport was largely for personal reasons so that she could spend more time with her family.  But she warned that Cornwall is unlikely to see any more attempts to launch rockets for at least “two-to-three years.”

Mrs Quinn told ViaSatellite:  “For me, as a mom and wife, I sacrificed a lot to get to launch, and I need to take a bit of a break from launch, to work in a different field of the industry and spend a bit more time with my family,” she said.

It is cheaper to rent a space cluster hot desk just for the car parking than to use the official Newquay Airport car park

Cornwall's space cadets return to Farnborough next week for another stab at marketing.  Cornwall Council recently voted £510,000 to fund this sort of activity for the next two years.

In January Cornwall Council cabinet member Louis Gardner said there were "150 jobs already associated" with the spaceport.  It is this interesting use of words which some councillors now want to subject to more rigorous scrutiny.

“It was much more a personal decision than any reflection of the Spaceport. If anything, the Spaceport is going to be busier than ever because we have all of these new facilities and businesses moving in.”

County Hall’s record of counting its spaceport chickens before they have hatched will shortly come under the scrutiny of councillors, dismayed that they did not ask more serious questions in years gone by.

In January, ahead of the failed Virgin Orbit mission, Cornwall Council’s cabinet member for the spaceport, councillor Louis Gardner, misleadingly declared to the world’s media that there were “150 jobs already associated with the spaceport” bringing £200 million a year into Cornwall.

Even after Richard Branson’s rocket failed to reach orbit, councillor Gardner was promising colleagues that Newquay would see another attempted launch before the end of the year.

Mrs Quinn’s current forecast of a launch attempt within two-to-three years seems highly improbable, as the only company planning to launch anything from Cornwall is the Canadian Space Engine Systems (SES) which is already advertising horizontally-launched flights from Newquay to the Moon in its “Sexbomb” spaceplane.

SES admits it has never actually achieved any kind of take-off.

petertremayne@cornwallreports.co.uk