Richard Branson's Cosmic Girl fails to put UK into orbit; Virgin sinks 30%

Britain’s attempt to send the first satellites into orbit from its own soil failed, dealing a blow to its bid to join the ranks of space nations and sending shares of Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings tumbling.

For Virgin Orbit the failure represents a more material setback, with the stock plunging close to 30 per cent in after-hours US trading.

Virgin Orbit’s modified 747 plane Cosmic Girl took off from Spaceport Cornwall, with the LauncherOne rocket underneath its wing. At an altitude of roughly 35,000 feet, the rocket successfully deployed from Cosmic Girl and ignited its main engine. However, sometime during the flight the vehicle suffered an unknown anomaly, leading to the loss of the mission.

“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 got.”

Virgin Orbit originally 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. 

Tuesday’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.

UK plans for another launch in the next 12 months remain intact, Annett said, whether from Cornwall or another of seven planned space pads.

The failed mission, named Start Me Up after the Rolling Stones song, had carried satellites for seven customers, including a number for UK firms, a US-UK military mission, and Oman’s first-ever orbiter.

Deployment of small satellites as surged amid the drive to create new mega constellations for broadband communications. Global launches, many of them by privately held enterprises like 

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, have increased threefold to 1,700 satellites a year since 2012 and are expected to double again by 2030, according to the UK Space Agency.

Virgin Orbit 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.

The modified 747 “Cosmic Girl” took off from Spaceport Cornwall at 10:02 p.m. local time, carrying the LauncherOne rocket beneath its wing. At an altitude of roughly 35,000 feet, LauncherOne successfully deployed and fired up, at which point the mission appeared headed for success.

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.

Virgin Orbit said in a statement that the mission nevertheless “represents an important step forward.”

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.

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 the Mojave Desert in California.

Cosmic Girl

Operated 14 years as a passenger plane with Virgin Atlantic

Completed 8,265 flights as G-VWOW

2015: Acquired for use as an airborne launch vehicle

2021: Completed first successful launch of LauncherOne rocket

Source: Virgin 

LauncherOne
 

The rocket

21 metres in length

28,162 kmph maximum speed 5 seconds between release and ignition

500kg payload limit

500km typical altitude

Source: Virgin Orbit

What on earth went wrong!
 

LauncherOne faced problems during its second stage after release from Cosmic Girl

The rocket dropped from the aircraft 10,668 metres above the Atlantic, off Ireland’s southern coast

The first stage — which sees the spacecraft burst into life after about 4 seconds before accelerating to more than 12,875 kilometres per hour — appeared to proceed accordingly

The second stage was supposed to eject the nine onboard satellites into orbit — and this is the vital moment where the as-yet-undefined ‘anomaly’ is thought to  have occurred

Virgin Orbit reported the issue about half an hour after the rocket dropped from the plane