The plan sounds simple: at four o’clock on a mid-May morning, a small flotilla of ships will set sail from the Danish island of Bornholm for international waters in the Baltic Sea, from where – later that day – a 6.7-metre-tall rocket, weighing 178 kilograms, will be fired 12.6 kilometres into the air, then float back down to Earth with the help of a parachute. But given that the rocket is a mishmash of pre-existing components, repurposed for space travel, the task is gargantuan.

The rocket isn’t part of a national military test or a major space programme supported by Nasa or the European Space Agency (ESA). It’s not even the latest test of Elon Musk’s multi-billion-dollar SpaceX project, or one of Virgin Galactic’s trial launches. It’s been cobbled together by a crowdfunded team of around 50 volunteers working in a Copenhagen warehouse who share a dream: of putting a human into space.

Launch remnants, including a 2012 TM65 engine, a 2016 Nexø I (with a 4 on its fin) and a 2012 Tycho Deep Space capsule Nick Ballon


“I wouldn’t say we’re competing with Nasa, per se,” says Mads Wilson, 41, a freelance IT consultant who joined the group, Copenhagen Suborbitals, in 2013, five years after a handful of enthusiasts first banded together with the goal of amateur manned spaceflight. For one thing, Copenhagen Suborbitals’ budget is around £10,000 per month – just 0.00084 per cent of the amount that Charles Bolden, the president of Nasa, requested from the US government in 2017. But they are still able to produce space-worthy vessels, stepping stones on the path to sending a human to space – something Wilson believes they can do within a decade.



“If we had all the money we needed, we could do it in two to five years,” he says. But rather than a million-pound budget, Copenhagen Suborbitals subsists on the goodwill of around 700 supporters from around the world, who pay $10 or $20 per month to receive regular project updates from the all-volunteer staff, who tend to spend between five and 50 hours a week on the endeavour. “We have engineers, metal workers, electronics guys, software guys – all sorts of skills,” says Wilson. But their volunteer status is the main brake on progress. “We don’t have the money to pay people so they could work completely dedicated to the project.” Being outside the formal organisations of a national or supra-national space programme does have its benefits, however. Wilson doesn’t call Nasa or ESA conservative or boring, but does say their political ties through funding “make them very careful”.

Team member Bianca Diana, wearing a protective welding jacket Nick Ballon

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Currently, Copenhagen Suborbitals’ supporters are receiving missives about the Nexø II rocket, which will be able to push with a thrust of 5,000 Newtons thanks to its ethanol and liquid oxygen engine. But not all aspects of the rocket are cutting edge. Budgetary constraints mean the rocket, which will cost just £25,000 in total, is built using begged and borrowed components. The computer used in the engine control system is a repurposed cashier’s terminal from a Burger King; the pressure regulation system is based on a scuba diving funnel; a previous rocket (the current Nexø II rocket is the fifth Copenhagen Suborbitals have built) used a brake cable from a Fiat car to synchronise the opening of crucial valves.

Whereas Richard Branson and Elon Musk are breaking new scientific ground in their attempts to rekindle the Space Race, Copenhagen Suborbitals powers its spacecraft using principles and technologies developed during the Russia-US space rivalry of the 50s and 60s. “I used to think – as most of us perceive spaceflight – that you need loads of investment,” says Wilson, who will be taking the role of flight information dynamics officer, feeding back telemetry from the rocket’s GPS systems to the team during the Nexø II launch. “But there are two ways of doing this. We are using modern materials to do what they did, but far more cheaply. What was a cutting edge component back in the 50s, you can buy off the shelf now.”


Rune Henssel cutting a length of pipe in the workshop Nick Ballon

This second way also requires having dedication that borders on obsession – and an understanding family. “I’d be lying if I said that sometimes they aren’t annoyed,” explains Wilson. “It’s a difficult balance: a lot of time goes from being spent with the family to doing this.”

But like all those who give up their time to work on the project, Wilson holds a romantic view of space. “We all share the same story,” he says. “Most of us here grew up in the 70s and 80s, with Apollo and the Space Shuttle. We were glued to the television every time they broadcast something about the Space Shuttle launch. We all scoured the local libraries for whatever we could find on rocketry. All of us dreamt about rockets, spacecraft, and building these huge machines.”


A Nexø I test launch Nick Ballon

Provided the May launch of the Nexø II goes well, the team at Copenhagen Suborbitals may eventually see their dreams become a reality. The group are currently designing the Spica, a one-metre-diameter, 16-metre-tall rocket, about big enough for a human. “Just moving that baby around is going to be difficult,” admits Wilson, who adds that they’ll need to have plenty of unmanned test flights before they dare put a pilot inside. But they remain confident they’ll achieve their target – and within the decade.

“We don’t want to stop,” he says. “Our goal is to be the first amateurs to put a human into space. But it’s also our goal to inspire people all over the world; to show that you can, if you want it badly enough and collect the right people, build a rocket.”