An artist's concept of a rocket lifting off from the U.K.'s planned spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland.

With the announcement that Scotland will be home to Britain’s first spaceport, the U.K. is on the road to offering a one-stop-shop for building, operating and now launching satellites.

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Brian Berger is editor in chief of SpaceNews.com and the SpaceNews magazine. He joined SpaceNews.com in 1998, spending his first decade with the publication covering NASA. He was named senior staff writer in 2004, a position he held until being named...