LAUNCH SERVICES · OPERATOR PROFILE · DATA AS OF 2026-06-16

Royal Aircraft Establishment

Active Launch Services Government HQ: Farnborough, UK Founded 1918

UK government aerospace research establishment; operated the Black Arrow programme which placed Prospero (X-3) into orbit on 28 October 1971 — the United Kingdom's only sovereign orbital launch to date. Programme cancelled the same year; institution succeeded by DERA then QinetiQ.

47.9

ARI Composite

Moderate Risk

#15 of 30

Peer Rank

Launch cohort

Total Launches

As lead operator

—

Estimated valuation

Not disclosed

FINANCIAL HEALTH

47.9

ARI composite · Moderate Risk

Peer rank#15 of 30

Peer groupLaunch

Data coverage55%

Full finance profile →

FLEET COMPOSITION

Every vehicle this operator has flown. Linked profiles carry the full reliability + reuse + subsystem record.

Vehicle	Class	Launches	Success rate	Reuse
Black Arrow	—	2	50.0%	—

RECENT LAUNCHES

Date	Mission	Vehicle	Orbit	Outcome
Oct 28, 1971	X-3	Black Arrow	—	Success	Source ↗
Sep 02, 1970	X-2	Black Arrow	—	Failure	Source ↗

SECTOR POSITION

Primary sectorLaunch Services

Rank within sector#15 of 30

Tracked peers30

REGISTRY DATA

Legal nameRoyal Aircraft Establishment

OwnershipGovernment

HeadquartersFarnborough, UK

CountryGB

Founded1918

ParentUK Ministry of Defence (historic); succeeded by DERA (1995), then QinetiQ (2001)

AliasesRAE, Royal Aircraft Establishment, Black Arrow

Key programsBlack Arrow, Black Knight

Gov customersUK Ministry of Defence

IPO statusGovernment research establishment (defunct)

Source: space_company_registry.json · Wikipedia Black Arrow article documents RAE programme history and Prospero orbital insertion.

METHODOLOGY

Launch history and subsystem outcomes aggregate from AstraVeris's launch_events table with Wilson 95% lower bounds on success rates. ARI scores come from the 11-factor composite (/finance/methodology/). Constellation counts derive from the live CelesTrak/GCAT object catalog. Gov contracts from USAspending.gov awards; private deals from deduplicated pipeline deal extraction. Absence of a row means "not tracked" — we never fabricate. See /methodology/ for the full data model and /data-licensing/ for licensing terms.

Not investment advice. For insurance underwriting, verify against primary-source filings and operator investigation reports.