The first orbital space launch on British terrority failed.
Newquay Airport in Cornwall played host the inaugural space mission that saw a repurposed 747 jumbo jet attempt to launch nine satellites into space on Monday night (09.01.23) but it did not go as planned by the operator Virgin Orbit, a company owned by the billionaire Sir Richard Branson.
The plane - dubbed Cosmic Girl - successfully lifted off however it suffered an “anomaly” therefore forcing it to make an unplanned landing back on the runway, leaving no one in the plane unharmed.
Matt Archer, the agency's launch programme director revealed the problem happened in the upper part of the rocket.
He told BBC News: "The second-stage engine had a technical anomaly and didn't reach the required orbit.
"That's now part of an investigation by Virgin Orbit and a number of government departments.”
Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit’s chief executive, said: "We are mindful that we failed to provide our customers with the launch service they deserve. 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.
"We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions, and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process."
In the build up to the launch - which intended to see the aircraft head west before releasing the rockets at 35,000 feet - Melissa Thorpe from Spaceport Cornwall said: "What we've seen over the last eight years is this building of excitement towards something very aspirational and different for Cornwall, something that started off as a project that not a lot of people really believed was ever going to happen.
"What I think people have seen here in Cornwall is a small team that lives and breathes this county deliver something quite incredible."
