Wyvern-II

Wyvern-II is a Wessex and Cornish solid expendable rocket used to launch satellites. The Wyvern-II followed the failed Wyvern-I, and was first launched at Goonhilly Space Centre, Cornwall in 1996, and launches have continued and it is still active as of 2013. The Royal Insitute of Astronautics (RIA) began developing the Wyvern-I in the late 1980's alongside RASA with some input from the UKSA, however tests on this failed and the Wyvern-II program began.

The Wyvern-II has three stages, and is 27.9 metres tall, 2.5 metres in diameter, and weighs about 140,000 tonnes. It is capable of luanching a satellite weighing around 1 tonne, in an orbit as high as 300 km.

The Wyvern-II launched the Axiom Research Satellite Program between 2001 - 2007, and launched the Beagle X-Ray Telescope in 2005 from Goonhilly.