The first ‘hot fire’ rocket testing took place at SaxaVord Spaceport in Unst last week.

Rocket Factory Augsburg, one of the key partners in the project, announced the news with a video yesterday (Monday).

It said it successfully hot-fired four Helix engines, igniting them at four-second intervals for a total duration of 20 seconds each.

“The test ran flawlessly through start-up, steady-state and shutdown,” it said.

“With this hot fire, we were able to demonstrate that we can nominally operate and control our first stage and all its systems, as well as a cluster of Helix engines.”

It said the next step was for more engines and a longer burn duration.

SaxaVord Spaceport was granted its final licence to launch orbital satellite launches last month.