IT was 50 years ago today that Britain really joined the space race when the first ever satellite designed and built in the UK was fired into space.

Ariel III was launched from Vandenberg Air Base in the USA on March 5, 1967, atop an American Scout rocket, Britain not having its own suitable launch vehicle at that time.

The six Ariel satellites sent into space between 1962 and 1979 remain the most successful British civilian spacecraft programme yet constructed, with the Science Research Council responsible for them all.

IT WAS NOT THE FIRST BRITISH SPACECRAFT

BACK in 1959 the US offered to launch satellites for other countries and the UK was the first to take up the offer. The American space agency NASA designed and built the first two Ariel satellites to British specifications.

Ariel 1 was launched on April 26 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carried into space by a Thor rocket. It was the first satellite in space that was not American or Russian and was hailed at the time as Britain joining the space race, especially as it was an experimental satellite sent up to examine cosmic rays and the ionosphere – pioneering stuff at the time.

Sadly, a high-altitude American nuclear bomb test damaged Ariel I in July, 1962, and it was never the same again. Ariel I’s orbit ended in 1976 when the satellite burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere.

BRITAIN HAD NO ROCKET?

AFTER World War II when British scientists were able to investigate captured Nazi V-2 rockets, Britain tried to develop its own rocket, and the Black Knight and Blue Streak rockets — large missiles really — of the 1950s were successfully test-fired from Woomera in Australia.

The plan was to develop a genuine space rocket, the Black Prince, but it was cancelled in 1960 due to lack of funds, and from then on British space exploration was heavily dependent on the Americans.

SO ARIEL III WAS A TRUE BRIT?

THAT’S what made it so important. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government had promised the ‘white heat of technology’ would transform Britain and Ariel III was hailed as an entirely British satellite apart from the rocket.

There were five experiments on board, measuring everything from galactic radio noise to the terrestrial radio noise of thunderstorms.

After only five months the vital tape recorder on board the satellite began to malfunction and observations could only be made in real time which greatly restricted Ariel III’s usage.

The satellite gathered plenty useful data before a power failure further hampered its use. It was shut down in September 1969 and its orbit decayed so that on December 14, 1970, Ariel III plunged into the atmosphere and burned up.

HOW LONG DID BRITAIN TRY TO CONQUER SPACE?

ACTUALLY, the UK has never stopped completely, but has taken “rest” periods in civilian terms. There was even a successful rocket called the Black Arrow which was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971. The last of these launches saw Black Arrow carry into space the Prospero experimental satellite which again was designed and built in the UK – the only time that a British rocket carried a British satellite into space. The Black Arrow programme, like Blue Streak before it, was cancelled because of cost. Since then we have seen the founding of the British National Space Centre in 1985, replaced by the UK Space Agency in 2010.

WHAT ABOUT BRITAIN’S SECRET SPACE PROGRAMME?

The Skynet military communications programme is the most successful British satellite project of them all, a massive five decades-long programme providing military communications satellites for Britain’s forces and NATO, much of which remains top secret as its largest user by far is the Government Communications HQ (GCHQ). There was a plan to develop the so-called Zircon spy satellite programme, but it was cancelled amid a huge row over secrecy.

HOW IS SCOTLAND DOING NOW?

Very well. The Scottish space industry consists of more than 100 private and public organisations employing almost 7,000 people and contributing more than £130m to Scotland’s economy. In the last two years, Glasgow has built more satellites than any other European city. There is also still the hope that Prestwick Airport can become the UK’s first spaceport. All matters related to space, however, are retained by the UK Government.