eThe first attempt to launch satellites from the United Kingdom, for which Virgin Orbit was the provider, made it to space but not to the intended orbit.
After successfully lifting off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall and flying to the designated launch area, Cosmic Girl, the 747 serving as the first stage of the LauncherOne system, successfully released the rocket. The vehicle then ignited its engines, quickly reached hypersonic speed, and reached space. The flight continued with the separation of the stages and the ignition of the second stage.
According to the company, while the mission did not reach its final orbit, crossing the Kármán line represents an important step forward. «This venture generated new partnerships and integrated collaboration from a wide range of partners, and demonstrated that space launch from British soil is feasible,» Virgin Orbit said in a statement. Of LauncherOne’s five missions, this was the first to fail to reach its planned orbit.
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Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, said, «While we are very proud of what we have achieved, we are aware that we have not been able to provide our customers with the launch service they signed up for. The novel nature of this mission added levels of complexity that our team managed professionally. However, in the end, a technical failure appears to have prevented us from delivering the payload to its target orbit. We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure,» he said.
Melissa Thorpe, director of Spaceport Cornwall, added: «We are proud of all that we have achieved. Unfortunately, Virgin Orbit has suffered an anomaly, which means we have not achieved mission success.»
The anomaly occurred sometime during the ignition of the rocket’s second-stage engine, with the vehicle traveling at more than 11,000 miles per hour. The nature of the failure was not specified, but it caused the mission to end prematurely.
