Historic UK Mission Reaches Space Falls Short of Orbit
[Ed. note: original story submission was about the upcoming launch and this submission has been updated with the launch result --hubie]
After successfully taking off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall - which just a few weeks ago was transformed from a mere slab of empty cement at a commercial airport to the world's newest space launch operations center - and travelling to the designated drop zone, Cosmic Girl, the customized 747 that serves as the LauncherOne system's carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket.
The rocket then ignited its engines, quickly going hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage. However, at some point during the firing of the rocket's second stage engine and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, the system experienced an anomaly, ending the mission prematurely.
From the original story submission:
Seeing as Start Me Up is the "first" in several ways - it's also the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, as well as the first commercial launch from western Europe - the private space corp said it will "maintain a conservative posture with regard to system health, weather, and all other elements of scheduling." That ups the probability of a delay, unless everything falls into place for Virgin Orbit on Monday. Even so, the LauncherOne orbital launch vehicle that will be used for this mission is now attached to Cosmic Girl, the Boeing 747 aircraft that will serve as its first stage launch platform. The company had to transport LauncherOne, which was manufactured in Long Beach, California, to the UK to make the journey possible.
[...] In addition to making history, the mission will ferry satellites from seven customers, both commercial and government, to orbit. Its payload include CIRCE (Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment), which is a joint project between the UK Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the US Naval Research Laboratory, and two CubeSats for the UK Ministry of Defense's Prometheus-2 initiative.
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