Newton Launch Systems was founded in 2011 to develop technology for the launch and operation of small spacecraft. It was one of the first private businesses to consider the potential for UK launch and played an important role in steering the UK Space Agency towards launch in the early years. In 2012 it undertook a detailed technical and commercial feasibility study into a UK based small launcher as part of a UK Space Agency funded consortium. The study determined that launch from the UK was feasible, identified a suitable launch site and even proposed a concept design for the vehicle. The commercial study, however, laid bare the realities of small launcher economics including the disproportionate costs associated with scaling down a launch vehicle and the small market share available to a 200 kg class launcher operating from the UK. The 10 year prediction for market growth, which contradicted most other predictions at the time, proved to be highly accurate, once constellations are removed from the analysis and reinforces Newton's view that small satellite launch from the UK will not succeed unless supported by an anchor customer such as the UK Government. Newton parked its own launcher ambitions in 2013 to focus on technology development.

It became clear to Newton that the decades old paradigm of launching single-use satellites on expendable rockets was neither commercially or environmentally sustainable and needed to be challenged. The desire to end the dominance of fossil fuels commonly used by launch vehicles and toxic propellants used by spacecraft has guided Newton's internal R&D programme for the past decade. Most recently, Newton's small technical team investigated the use of nitrous oxide as a monopropellant for satellites in place of hydrazine. The project, funded by the UK Space Agency's Enabling Technologies Programme (ETP), resulted in the successful manufacture and testing of a 1 N thruster, in which the nitrous oxide was decomposed without a catalyst by induction heating. Several minutes of continuous burn were achieved without damage. Other recent R&D includes the development of vortex-cooled bi-propellant rocket engines and a study into sustainable horizontal launch solutions.

Newton recognises that its vision of sustainable access to space will never be realised unless like-minded businesses have access to low-cost test and evaluation facilities. With this in mind, Newton has collaborated with the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre to create the Snowdonia Space Centre. The consortium received a UK Space Agency Space Cluster Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) grant to refurbish several of the existing buildings at Llanbedr airfield in Gwynedd and fit them out with a range of space/aerospace related test equipment. The new facilities include a clean room with thermal vacuum chamber, small (cubesat size) centrifuge, 5 kN thrust rocket propulsion test stand (expandable to 50 kN), a 12m variable inclination launch rail, tracking/range control for rocket vehicles and UAVS and a structural test frame. The new facilities complement the existing UAV test range, which includes three runways and segregated airspace extending over Cardigan Bay. The Snowdonia Space Centre is the ideal location for the testing of all kinds of space/aerospace hardware, especially early development prototypes, and also for training of the current and next generation of aerospace engineers and space industry employees.