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A repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft carrying Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, parked at Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport, Newquay. Ben Birchall

First UK rocket launch ends in failure after suffering ‘anomaly’

The Virgin Orbit plane flew to 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean where it jettisoned the rocket containing nine small satellites towards space.

AN ATTEMPT TO make British space history by launching a rocket into orbit from UK soil has ended in failure after suffering an “anomaly” during the flight.

After taking off from Cornwall, the Virgin Orbit plane flew to 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean where it jettisoned the rocket containing nine small satellites towards space.

Organisers of the Start Me Up mission said the rocket – with a variety of civil and defence applications – failed to orbit.

In a series of tweets, Virgin Orbit said: “We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information.

“As we find out more, we’re removing our previous tweet about reaching orbit. We’ll share more info when we can.”

Early this morning, Virgin Orbit issued a statement which said: “Out of five LauncherOne missions carrying payloads for private companies and governmental agencies, this is the first to fall short of delivering its payloads to their precise target orbit.”

“While we are very proud of the many things that we have successfully achieved as part of this mission, we are mindful that we failed to provide our customers with the launch service they deserve,” chief executive Dan Hart added.

“The first-time nature of this mission added layers of complexity that our team professionally managed through; however, in the end a technical failure appears to have prevented us from delivering the final orbit.”

While engineers tried to establish what went wrong, the plane returned to Spaceport Cornwall safely.

The plane, dubbed Cosmic Girl, took off on Monday night from Cornwall Airport with hundreds of members of the public watching and over 75,000 viewing a live stream of the event.

Named in tribute to the Rolling Stones’ 1981 hit, the mission involved a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft and Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.

It was originally hoped the launch could take place before Christmas but owing to technical and regulatory issues it had to be pushed into 2023.

The Department of Transport had issued an alert warning sailors and fishermen to stay out of an area of water to the south-west of Cork and Kerry for several hours last night in case of falling rocket debris.

The Department said that if the launch went to plan, there would be no risk to seafarers in the area, “however, there is a low probability for the vehicle to produce dangerous debris if a mishap were to occur”.

The warning was set to remain in place until shortly after 1am in the early hours of this morning, with mariners advised to report any debris or pollution sightings.

start-me-up-mission A repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, carrying Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, takes off from Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport, Newquay. PA PA

The plane took off horizontally from the new facility at Cornwall Airport in Newquay while carrying the rocket under a wing.

To prepare Cosmic Girl for the launch the interior of the main deck was gutted of all seats and overhead bins to reduce the weight.

The upper deck, which was the former premium and economy cabin, has been converted into a small mission control room for launch engineers to oversee the mission the during flight.

Once the Boeing 747 reached the drop site, the pilots flew her in a looping “racetrack” pattern ahead of the rocket launch.

Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, spoke of her devastation at the mission failure.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve been knocked, this is the biggest definitely, but I feel okay and we’ll get up and we’ll go again,” she said.

“It hasn’t gone exactly to plan but we’ve done everything that we said we were going to do at Spaceport.

“We’re feeling awful, to be honest – I’m not going to lie.

“It’s gutting and we all heard at different times and when we got together there were tears, and it was very upsetting.

“We are family and we’ve been through a lot together. So, when you go through something like this as a family at least you have that support, and we all understand one another.

“There’s not much more I can say other than it’s gutting but everybody’s okay.”

 

Matt Archer, from the UK Space Agency, said the second stage of the launch suffered an “anomaly”, which the cause of was under investigation.

“In effect the rocket has not reached the required altitude to maintain its orbit or deploy the satellites and therefore the mission was unsuccessful,” he said.

“Over the coming days, there’ll be an investigation involving the Government and various bodies, including Virgin Orbit, to make sure we understand what caused that technical failure and again we’ll work out what to do next following that.”

He said the first stage burn would have got the rocket into basic orbit but a second stage was needed to put it 500km above the earth

“That didn’t happen tonight and what you have seen is that it has reached space but hasn’t reached the required orbit,” he said.

“While it is obviously disappointing that the mission wasn’t successful, actually we’re really proud of the fact that we’ve delivered so much here and we’ve created the conditions for launch here.

“We’ve seen that we can do it and we will look to do it again.”

The rocket was likely to burn up on re-entry to earth but was projected to land over water.

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41 Comments
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    Mute Terry Fagan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 1:40 AM

    Sky News at it again. Claiming Britain have “won the Space Race in Europe”! No mention of Ireland until it failed and then it “failed off the coast of Ireland” which it actually didn’t. The lowest of the low that lot. Their journalists hadn’t a clue what was going on either and they were basically hopping up and down about an aircraft taking off. Stop lads, you’re an embarrassment. Virgin is notorious in failure. Remember when Branson tried to cross the Atlantic in a giant condom? – and it burst.

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    Mute Kárl
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    Jan 10th 2023, 8:41 AM

    @Terry Fagan: Sure don’t you know, a virgin never goes all the way.

    272
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    Mute Stephen Deegan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 11:00 AM

    @Terry Fagan: Poor old sky news. The French have an entire launch pad facility in Guiana. But then again, why should the facts stand in the way of a good story.

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    Mute Pauline Gallagher
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    Jan 10th 2023, 2:49 PM

    @Terry Fagan: they are just as biased towards their own perceived greatness as BBC

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    Mute Sean Higgins
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:08 AM

    The North Koreans would have a better chance of a successful launch.

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    Mute James Mccartan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 9:30 AM

    Word is it was taken out by harry kane’s penalty kick

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    Mute Paul Jude Redmond
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    Jan 9th 2023, 10:42 PM

    DUCK!!!

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Jan 9th 2023, 10:45 PM

    @Paul Jude Redmond: orange!

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    Mute SPQH
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    Jan 10th 2023, 11:17 AM

    @Paul Jude Redmond: “Crashed and Burned, Mav, huh?”

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    Mute Ronan Lawler
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:52 PM

    Not looking good, apparently suffered an anomaly

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:18 AM

    @Ronan Lawler: Yeah, looking like a failed mission. Probably the WiFi they used ;~}

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    Mute veronikahladova
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    Jan 9th 2023, 10:50 PM

    I hope no rocket debris falls and kills any wildlife, if it does I hope the wildlife doesn’t die or get maimed, if it does get maimed I hope virgin cleans up the mess

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    Mute James Kerins
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    Jan 10th 2023, 8:15 AM

    @veronikahladova: You’re very hopeful….

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    Mute David Terry
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:14 AM

    @veronikahladova: I think the fish will be fine..

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    Mute ΛПĐY
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    Jan 10th 2023, 5:58 PM

    @David Terry: I’m hearing reports that an unconfirmed number of fish have applied for a self funded space exploration program themselves. And hope to deploy an anti rocket anomaly surveillance system. In case it happens again.

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:27 PM

    That must be the worst coverage of a major event I’ve seen (or didn’t see) pathetic.

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:30 PM

    @Kevin O’Brien: Tracked the plane on Flight Radar.

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:34 PM

    @Dave Barrett: Same. And tried to follow it on YouTube too, but that was just awful. Talk about doing things wrong.

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    Mute Tom Quinn
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:50 PM

    @Kevin O’Brien: It was live in Sky News and the BBC 24 hour News channel.

    A lot of begrudgery vibes there fella.

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:09 AM

    @Tom Quinn: Why would I be begrudging? Virgin had a dedicated YouTube channel, you know the people who were actually launching it & it was an absolute shambles. Thrilled you saw it on both BBC4 & SKY News “fella”

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    Mute Tom Quinn
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:34 AM

    @Kevin O’Brien: Well, if Virgin can mess up something technical they will.

    They can’t even manage a decent WIFI signal on Earth.

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:51 AM

    @Tom Quinn: That’s very very true, can’t argue with that tbf, haha. It’s a failed mission now (unsurprisingly) Gives them a chance to fix things & I’m not on about the rocket.

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    Mute Terry Fagan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 1:41 AM

    @Kevin O’Brien: it was dire.

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    Mute Terry Fagan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 1:42 AM

    @Dave Barrett: so did I but the mup0et reporting for Sky News said he didn’t know where it was! Woeful coverage.

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    Mute Pat O'Leary
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    Jan 10th 2023, 7:54 AM

    I reckon Brexit doomed it to failure.

    67
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    Mute Jim Buckley Barrett
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    Jan 10th 2023, 8:11 AM

    @Pat O’Leary: Somehow I can see the UK papers blaming the EU!!!!

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    Mute Paul Gorry
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    Jan 9th 2023, 11:00 PM

    I’ll never ever buy a cd in virgin records again oh wait!

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    Mute Aidy McBride
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:12 AM

    @Paul Gorry: ah those were the days Paul, CD’s, alco pops, United on top. A much simpler time.

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    Mute Patrick Fitzgibbon
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:02 AM

    UK is choc a block with anomalies presently

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    Mute billy bound
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    Jan 10th 2023, 8:22 AM

    Imagine ireland trying though!

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    Mute Tomás Barrett
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    Jan 10th 2023, 9:59 AM

    @billy bound: there would be a man on the moon today.

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    Mute Steve O'Hara-Smith
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    Jan 10th 2023, 8:11 PM

    @Tomás Barrett: and one on the sun tonight.

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    Mute James Kenley
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:13 AM

    Boldly going where no virgin has gone before. Down!

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    Mute John Moylan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 9:32 AM

    should have name it:
    The Good Ship Brexit.
    The SS Taking Back Control.
    The You Can Sign Out But You Can Never Leave (Earth)……..with apologies to the Eagles.

    31
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    Mute Tom Hogarty
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:00 AM

    I was disappointed that the rocket attempt failed, the technology is old enough and has been well tested. But it demonstrates that projects do fail and unexpectedly! I was also expecting to see the headline, Britain Fires Rocket Into The Sea Off The South of Ireland. Well, Dyson famously experienced many hundreds of failures as he developed a product that really sucks, onward and, err, upward, I guess?

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    Mute Keth Warsaw
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:08 PM

    @Tom Hogarty: Like Dyson, it ran out if power far too early.

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    Mute Dave McAuliffe
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    Jan 10th 2023, 9:08 AM

    So the launch only went half way?

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    Mute Keth Warsaw
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    Jan 10th 2023, 12:04 PM

    Don’t know which is worse: Virgin Orbit or Virgin TV.

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    Mute Sean Shanahan
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    Jan 10th 2023, 10:58 AM

    Maybe they can reboot it.

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    Mute Pj Browne
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    Jan 10th 2023, 1:59 PM

    They can’t do a thing right

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    Mute Pauline Gallagher
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    Jan 10th 2023, 2:54 PM

    was it only 1960s NASA that could really get things done?

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