(Bloomberg) — The rocket launched from underneath a 747 jumbo over southern England suffered a technical malfunction during its maiden flight, dealing a crushing blow to the UK’s ambitions to join the ranks of space nations and sending the shares of Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. tumbling.
(Bloomberg) — The rocket launched from underneath a 747 jumbo over southern England suffered a technical malfunction during its maiden flight, dealing a crushing blow to the UK’s ambitions to join the ranks of space nations and sending the shares of Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. tumbling.
Virgin Orbit’s modified 747 plane “Cosmic Girl” took off from Spaceport Cornwall at 10:02 p.m. local time, carrying the company’s LauncherOne rocket underneath its wing. At an altitude of roughly 35,000 feet (10,668 meters), the rocket successfully deployed and ignited its main engine. Then sometime during the flight the vehicle suffered an unknown anomaly, leading to the loss of the mission.
As a result, the unmanned rocket was unable to deploy the satellites it carried. The crew on the aircraft returned safely.
Confusion arose after Virgin Orbit prematurely tweeted that the launch had reached orbit. However, later it said an anomaly occurred that prevented the rocket reaching orbit and deleted the initial tweet.
While failures on space missions aren’t unusual, the unfortunate outcome of this particular endeavor carries additional weight because of its patriotic fanfare, as it sought to put Britain on the map as a country able to launch from its own soil. Virgin had put plans for a pre-Christmas launch on hold amid last-minute snags, but managed to get the mission away in the first of multiple new windows it set out.
Virgin Orbit said in a statement that the mission nevertheless “represents an important step forward.”
After decoupling from the aircraft, the rocket ignited its engines, went hypersonic and reached space, where it separated and ignited the second stage, Virgin Orbit said.
“However, at some point during the firing of the rocket’s second stage engine and with the rocket traveling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, the system experienced an anomaly, ending the mission prematurely,” Virgin Orbit said.
Besides the so-called horizontal launch attempted yesterday from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay, southwest England, two Scottish bases are also committed to Cape Canaveral-style vertical blastoffs by the end of the year, while three other UK sites are seeking the go-ahead for horizontal launches.
Virgin Orbit shares fell 25% in after-hours trade. Yesterday’s launch was Virgin Orbit’s sixth attempt to reach orbit, and the second in-flight failure. So far, the company has successfully launched to orbit four times from Mojave, California.
“It appears that LauncherOne has suffered an anomaly which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission,” Christopher Relf, Virgin Orbit’s director of Systems Engineering and Verification, said during a livestream of the launch. “We are looking at the information and data that we have gotten.”
(Adds comment fro Virgin Orbit on mission failure)
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