What happened when Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl took off from Cornwall on a failed space mission to the UK

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The first rocket sent into space by the UK suffered an anomaly, meaning the mission failed.

Virgin Orbit says it is assessing the information after LauncherOne was denied access to orbit.

A Boeing 747 carrying the first rocket launched into space from UK soil took off from Space Cornwall on Monday night (9 January).

Virgin Orbit’s modified plane – dubbed Cosmic Girl – took off horizontally from the Newquay site with a LauncherOne rocket attached to its wing shortly after 10 p.m.

It then made its way across the Atlantic before launching the rocket, with satellites on board, when it reached southern Ireland at about 11 p.m.

The rocket then ignited and accelerated to 22 times the speed of sound, passing the coasts of Spain and Portugal before leaving Earth’s atmosphere at 17,200 miles per hour.

But an “anomaly” in the rocket meant that it failed to reach orbit.

Virgin Orbit said in a tweet: “It appears that we had an anomaly that prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information.”

Matt Archer, director of commercial space at the British Space Agency, told ITV News West Country that the first stage of the rocket was successful and “burned up as expected” but that the second stage had “an anomaly of sorts”.

“We don’t know what that is and again they will be an investigation in the coming days to work with, but effectively it won’t reach the height required to deploy the satellites,” he said.

“It is possible that they will separate on return but again that will be worked through with the Virgin team, but again there is no risk to human life.

“At this point the mission was unsuccessful but we have proven we can launch from Cornwall and again everything is ready for another launch in the future.”

If the mission had been successful, the satellites would have been the first ever launched into space from Europe.

What was the situation on the ground before and during takeoff?

Cosmic Girl’s “Car Wheels” moment occurred shortly after 10 p.m. to the sound of cheers from the crowd.

There was a real party atmosphere at Newquay Airport all evening. It was really very crowded on site, with a lot of people sitting and standing who had their eyes fixed on the runway before take off. There was loud music and people spent time taking pictures of the replica LauncherOne rocket.

Even the mere sound of Cosmic Girl’s engine turning on excited the audience, but they calmed down as they watched the car taxi down the runway before hearing the roar of excitement as it left Earth.

Cosmic Girl taxis on the runway before takeoff at Spaceport Cornwall Credit: PA

A rocket launch from Cosmic Girl

There were cheers again as the rocket was shot down from Cosmic Girl and the successful ignition was confirmed.

The crew quickly moved the aircraft out of the missile’s path and took off on their return to Cornwall.

But there was a silent cheer as Cosmic Girl and her crew returned safely to Cornwall after news of the rocket anomaly reached the crowds.

What was on the LauncherOne rocket that launched from Cornwall?

The missions of the satellites aboard LauncherOne include a wide range of activities aimed at improving life on the planet, including reducing the environmental impact of production; preventing illegal trade, smuggling and terrorism; and a range of national security functions.

One cosmic plane girl and one rocket launcher: Virgin Orbit

IOD-3 AMBER (aka IOD-3) – Developed by Catapult Satellite Applications and Horizon Technologies and built by AAC Clyde Space, all based in the UK. The IOD-3 Amber is expected to be the first of more than 20 Amber satellites to provide space-based marine domain awareness data to users.

Prometheus-2 – two cubes owned by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory of the Department of Defense. These satellites will support the Department of Defense’s science and technology activities in orbit and on the ground.

CIRCE (CubeSat Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction Experiment) – CIRCE is part of a joint mission between the UK Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the US Naval Research Laboratory.

DOVER – Developed by the UK’s RHEA Group, is the company’s first satellite in its 30-year history. The satellite is co-funded by the European Space Agency’s Navigation Program and built by Open Cosmos. DOVER is a SmallSat that was built to serve as a global navigation satellite system explorer.

ForgeStar-0 – is the first ever satellite designed and built in Wales. The ForgeStar-0 satellite was designed by Cardiff startup Space Forge, which is creating the world’s first reversible, reusable satellite platform to harness the power of microgravity and transform potential manufacturing.

Aman – Oman’s first orbital mission, which is a single Earth observation satellite aimed at demonstrating the future viability of a larger constellation, and was developed after a memorandum of understanding between the Sultanate of Oman, the Polish company for the manufacture of small satellites and its operator SatRev, founded in Poland, an organization Amnesty International. Data analytics specialists TUATARA, and Oman-based fusion technology innovator, ETCO.

Stork-6 – Stork-6 is the next installment of the Polish STORK constellation of small satellite manufacturer and operator. Virgin Orbit previously launched two spacecraft into this constellation in a previous launch.

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