After a consultation, departments including the UK Space Agency, Department for Transport, and Civil Aviation Authority wrote that their plans "for Britain to be home of Europe's first spaceport" had moved a step closer.

The result of the consultation is a slightly narrower shortlist of six potential locations for the spaceport; one in England, one in Wales, and two in Scotland.

The idea of the project is to offer a place for sub-orbital spaceplanes to launch and land, and potentially launch satellites too. The government concluded it was not currently focused on developing a vertical launch facility, as "the CAA's initial analysis was that vertical launch facilities had differing requirements and may not be easy to collocate with horizontal spaceplane operations."