Edinburgh-born Will Whitehorn can claim to be the man who gave lift-off to the country’s excitingly poised space industry. And as far as he’s concerned the sky is the limit for what he calls ‘a new industrial revolution’.
When Britain was writhing with collective pain during the self-mutilation of the decision to leave the European Union, a critical decision was being considered concerning outer space.
The UK’s nascent space industry – with its emerging micro-satellite capabilities in Glasgow and the development of spaceports such as SaxaVord in Shetland– was closely tied in with the European Space Agency (ESA), which was not a direct EU organisation.
Will Whitehorn, who had been chairman of Virgin Galactic, and was president of UK Space, was on a Zoom call with Prime Minister Boris Johnson during Covid and made an impassioned plea pressing the premier for continued support and involvement with the ESA. While Brexit went on to create billions of pounds of damage to the UK economy, it was imperative that Scotland had the ability to continue working with Europe on matters related to space research and exploration.
Whitehorn managed to get a nod from Johnson. And today Scotland’s space industry, with Glasgow-made satellites in the sky, is one of the brightest hopes for our economic future.
In July, Peter Kyle, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, wrote to congratulate Whitehorn on his OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List.
“Your visionary leadership has been instrumental in shaping the UK’s space industry and positioning the UK as a global player in space exploration and innovation,” he stated. It was really an appreciation of what Whitehorn managed to protect and nurture.
Edinburgh-born Whitehorn, who studied at Aberdeen University, was in Glasgow for The Business Dealmakers Breakfast [see report, page 36] to explain the work of his investment company, Seraphim Space Investment Trust. It is the world’s first listed space technology investment company.
Today, thanks to Whitehorn’s intervention, the UK remains a member of the European Space Agency and continues to participate in the Copernicus Space Component of the Copernicus programme. This allows Scottish firms to continue to be able to bid for contracts tendered through ESA, and also gain unique access to the Earth’s observation data.
Companies can also bid for future work on the EU Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) programme, although the UK no longer participates in the EU Galileo or European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) programmes.
“I spent the first part of my working life after leaving Aberdeen University as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea.
“I then worked for Thomas Cook as a trainee, worked in the City in London, and then had the great fortune of going to work for the Virgin Group. It was a very crucial time in the development of Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial life, working with a kind of ‘branded’ venture capital organisation looking for relevant opportunities,” he explains.
Whitehorn spent 25 years with the Virgin Group, often as Sir Richard’s right-hand man on an assortment of projects. The last five years were part-time, which allowed him to develop his non-executive directorships. He served as a non-executive director at the Royal Air Force and holds the rank equivalent of air vice-marshall.
But, during the last five years with Virgin, Whitehorn spent time and immense energy in setting up Virgin Galactic, which is now flying fare-paying missions into sub-orbital space from its New Mexico base.
There are tens of thousands of new space companies. This is an industrial revolution, and it is going to affect everything that happens for almost every business in the world
While the UK remaining in the European Space Agency has been imperative for the economy, earlier access to the American space industry was a game-changer.
“We worked to get legislation through the US Congress, to allow commercial operators to become involved in space. I sat next to Elon Musk and Burt Rutan, an aircraft designer, and a representative of Jeff Bezos, for three months as we worked on the Commercial Space Launch Amendment Act.”
Rutan, a former test pilot and aviation pioneer, ran a company called Scaled Composites in the Californian desert town of Mojave. The company won the X-Prize taking a re-usable spacecraft into space. This was the foundation of Virgin Galactic, commercial space tourism and a mechanism for launching smaller satellites into geo-stationary orbits.
“That piece of legislation has changed the entire structure of the space industry,” says Whitehorn, who went on to establish UK Space Command.
After decades of domination by US government contracts for NASA and massive client manufacturers such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Airbus, who were building spacecraft and rockets, so began a new world order where NASA sub-contracts all of its rocketry work, and satellites are all built in the private sector.
“There are tens of thousands of new space companies. This is an industrial revolution, and it is going to affect everything that happens going forward for almost every business in the world. It’s already having big impacts on the insurance market, agriculture and defence.”
When Whitehorn first became involved in the space industry 20 years ago, there were around 650 satellites in space. “We are about to go through the 30,000
mark. That’s mostly happened in the last six years. By 2028, we will probably have around 100,000 satellites in space. And they are doing so many things that we don’t even see or notice, yet we are benefiting from them.”
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has made 135 launches in 2025; by comparison, it took NASA 30 years of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station to reach 130 launches. The current level of activity is frenetic.
“Let me give you a very good example: the world’s most valuable company at the moment is probably SpaceX, which is responsible for 80 per cent of all the launches of satellites in the western world. And that company has raised capital of $260bn, basically the Scottish economy. SpaceX has changed an entire industrial infrastructure by getting the cost of launch down about 90 per cent.”
Put all these things together and we are announcing more data from space every week than the whole of what the internet contained in 2001
Whitehorn cites farmers in Brazil who can find out if a single plant in a 10,000 hectare field is infected with disease. The insurance company with this satellite data can inform the farmer, who can then eradicate the disease.
This is increasing agricultural production massively. Whitehorn says space technology has already allowed global agricultural production to increase by about 12-15 per cent in the last decade.
Whitehorn, who is also the Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University, has always been something of a future gazer with an eye on the commercial and the benefits for humanity. He helped set up Seraphim, which floated on the stock market in 2021, and the investment trust now has a stake in 32 space companies.
“That’s only one tiny aspect of the huge change that’s going on. It’s why ICEYE, one of the companies that we’ve invested in, and one of the fastest growing in the world, has developed a constellation of satellites that can see through cloud and during darkness.”
The company, which has launched its satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon missions, spotted Russian soldiers had crossed the border to invade northern Ukraine, giving an early warning to the Ukrainians. Starlink has also transformed the ability of the Ukrainians to resist the Russians, after Elon Musk opened Starlink to Kiev.
“The next aspect of space’s development is AI related. Space produces perfect data at all levels. Hyper-spectral cameras, laser-penetration of ground, new radars which can look though clouds and at night.
“Put all these things together and we are announcing more data from space every week than the whole of what the internet contained in 2001. The next phase is data farms and server farms in space. The next space data centre is going into space in the next 25 months,” he says.
Data centres have overtaken aviation as a source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. More coal-fired power stations are needed to cope with the energy demands from new generation data centres. After this there will solar panels in space, with electricity microwaved down to the planet.
“When we have completed this stage, we will see clearly what has become a revolution in space.
“At the moment, the industry in the UK is employing 70,000 people, many in well-paid technical and engineering workforces. Our export sales next year will be $5bn.”
He says the space industry has now overtaken many sectors that might be considered larger. “This is in the very early stages of this new industrial revolution.”
‘THERES A LOT HAPPENING’: SUPPORTING THE INDUSTRY IN SCOTLAND
As Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University, Will Whitehorn is committed to the education of the future generations. He admits that graduation ceremonies are among his most arduous mornings and afternoons, as he doffs the shoulders of the graduands. He views today’s students as fantastic.
“They want to work hard. They want to get good degrees. They are a very vocational bunch of students. They are keen and eager, more focused on what they want to do.”
Whitehorn chairs AAC Clyde Space, which has successfully completed the AAC Clyde Space’s Sedna-1 satellite, which is now delivering maritime intelligence to customers. In 2026, Clyde Space’s own VIREON-1 will be launched, the first of four satellites for Earth observation.
He was chair of the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) during its spell hosting Cop26, when the Finnieston site was handed over for use by the United Nations.
“We’ve also invested a 15 per cent stake in an early-stage private equity Seraphim company which invests in space companies up to Series A finance. There’s lots happening in Scotland in the space sector. I’m looking at a couple of companies in Edinburgh who have got unique and interesting technology.”
But he points to the difficulty of raising finance in the UK.
“When Seraphim was set up in 2016 I found it very hard to raise money to invest in space companies in the UK. The British Business Bank backed it. It was difficult working with them when I joined the company to float the business. The bank was reluctant initially, but we overcame that and we went public and the British Business Bank (BBB) is still a shareholder in Seraphim today.”
That fund has been crucially important to make space a success in this country.
“The Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) has invested in a couple of space companies in Scotland, which is encouraging. The BBB has played a role in getting things going, but they don’t do enough. They are not big enough.
“What I’d like to see are institutions being established in the UK that can piggy-back off the cheaper borrowing as happens in Germany.
“I’m sure the SNIB would agree as well. We need to do this, because every other nation is doing it.”
UK’s pension funds need to step up and grasp the potential of space.
“One of the most difficult things to do right now is take a company public, because our public markets are in disarray, largely thanks to government policy in the past.”
Whitehorn remains a passionate campaigner and wants British investors to actively invest in space.
