Festival atmosphere as Cornwall prepares for historic space launch

Virgin Orbit's Start Me Up mission to conduct first rocket launch of satellites from British soil

There was a festival atmosphere at Cornwall Airport Newquay on Monday afternoon as more than 2,000 space fans began to arrive to view a historic rocket launch.

As long as there are no last-minute technical hitches and the weather in the far south-west of Britain behaves, a converted Boeing 747 will take off from Spaceport Cornwall, fly out across the Atlantic and launch a rocket that will propel nine satellites into space.