Move over Elon Musk — a British billionaire has decided to bet on space.
The financial services tycoon Peter Hargreaves has taken control this weekend of the Goonhilly satellite tracking station in Cornwall with bold plans to expand its services.
Hargreaves has invested £24m in Goonhilly Earth Station (GES), a company founded by technology entrepreneur Ian Jones, who acquired the site from BT in 2014. The new deal will provide working capital to develop the business.
Goonhilly, which received the first live television pictures beamed across the Atlantic to its “Arthur” antenna in 1962, provides spacecraft tracking and monitoring services to the biggest satellite operators.
It recently signed an £8.4m contract with the European Space Agency to become the first private operator in the Deep