British Rocket Group The British Rocket Group was the United Kingdom ' s space exploration organisation in the 20th and early 21st centuries . After the war , the Group hired a German professor Heinrich Schumann . He was ( correctly ) suspected of being a Nazi war criminal by his co - workers but was never charged . ( AUDIO : " Threshold " ) Other post - war staff included Professor Jeffrey Broderick , Professor Rachel Jensen , Allison Williams , and a man called Bernard . ( AUDIO : " Artificial Intelligence " , TV : " Remembrance of the Daleks " ) Philanthropist Sir Keith Kordel was heavily involved in funding their early days . ( AUDIO : " Rise and Shine " ) During the 1950s and early 1960s , it was famous for its pioneering work on propulsion systems and rocket guidance arrays and for a serious of controversial orbital flights . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) In 1959 it collaborated with the United States of America on an experimental space plane , the Waverider ; the project director was Edward Drakefell . The Waverider was destroyed in an encounter with a hostile parallel universe . ( PROSE : " Loving the Alien " ) It was reduced to a skeleton crew by the 1960s . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) In 1963 , the Intrusion Countermeasures Group drafted Jensen and Williams to help with the Shoreditch Incident . Jensen remarked that the British Rocket Group had problems . ( TV : " Remembrance of the Daleks " ) In the mid 1960s , when the Group launched from Herefordshire , the Light Sleeper s brainwashed Sir Keith into hijacking a satellite launch to send pathogens around the world . Countermeasures thwarted it but many staff were killed . ( AUDIO : " Rise and Shine " ) When Professor Ralph Cornish took over , the Group was rejuvenated and renamed the British Space Centre . Using Cyberman technology , it jumped to the forefront of the space race and by 1969 ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) , it was running the Mars Probe series of spaceflights to Mars . ( TV : " The Ambassadors of Death " ) Shortly before the Apollo 11 mission , Cornish ' s team sent " Mars Probe 5 " in secret . ( PROSE : " Moon Blink " ) By 1970 , the name was Rocket Group again . Cornish was in overall charge of Britain ' s space programme and Professor Bernard Trainor ran the Group . It was instrumental in getting useful information about Neptune and Uranus from unmanned probes . Trainor was killed that year during the Waro attack . ( PROSE : " The Devil Goblins from Neptune " ) By 1977 , Liz Shaw was working for the Rocket Group . They were considering building a moonbase . ( AUDIO : " The Cloisters of Terror " ) The Martian missions ended after 1977 ' s " Mars Probe 12 " was slaughtered by the Ice Warrior s . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) By 1997 , the Science Minister Lord Edward Greyhaven pushed for a new Mars 97 manned mission as part of a conspiracy : to give an Ice Warrior faction an excuse to invade and occupy Britain . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) In 2006 , Prime Minister Harriet Jones oversaw the launch of the Guinevere One satellite . This was launched by the British Rocket Group under Professor Daniel Llewellyn . ( TV : " The Christmas Invasion " ) Britain ' s space programme had a reputation for amateurism in 2015 . There was a tracking station in Buckinghamshire . ( AUDIO : " The Eight Truths " ) In the early to mid 21st century , the space tourism billionaire Campbell Irons bought the Rocket Group and moved it to Devesham . ( AUDIO : " The Feast of Axos " ) Behind the scenes . The British Rocket Group were the protagonists in the influential " Quatermass " sci - fi serials . The mention of the Group and " Bernard " ( Quatermass ' first name ) was an easter egg reference by Ben Aaronovitch . ( In " Quatermass " , they were originally called the British Experimental Rocket Group ) " Who Killed Kennedy " states that their name was changed by Ralph Cornish , explaining why a different name was used in " The Ambassadors of Death " . While the agency is unnamed in " The Christmas Invasion " , a " British Rocket Group " logo can be made out in the background . The BBC created an in - universe tie - in website for the Guinevere One which included a Rocket Group history , though this is not considered valid by this wiki .