UK’s historic satellite launch fails to reach orbit after rocket ‘anomaly’

Virgin Orbit reported an “anomaly” in its rocket on Tuesday that stopped it from reaching orbit, ending Britain's attempt to become the first European country to launch a satellite into space. "We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information," Virgin Orbit said.

Virgin's LauncherOne rocket was carried under the wing of a customised Boeing 747 dubbed "Cosmic Girl" for the "horizontal launch" mission, which departed from the seaside town of Newquay in southwest England. The rocket was later released over the Atlantic Ocean, as per Reuters.

The aircraft engineering company made the "anomaly" public, 10 minutes before midnight. Less than an hour after the rocket was launched from Cosmic Girl, a 747 jumbo plane modified to unleash LauncherOne at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.

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This comes after the failure of a Vega-C rocket mission, which was built in Italy, in late December following lift-off from French Guiana.

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In its maiden flight away from its American base, Virgin Orbit, a company owned in part by British billionaire Richard Branson, initially intended to launch nine satellites into lower Earth orbit (LEO). Since then, the rockets have been grounded.

In a now-deleted tweet, Virgin Orbit said that LauncherOne had reached earth orbit.

"Over the coming days there will be an investigation by the government and various bodies, including Virgin Orbit," Matt Archer, Commercial Space Director at the UK Space Agency wrote.

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In the past year, Europe experienced a string of setbacks, including the delay of its crucial Ariane 6 launcher, access to Russian Soyuz rockets being restricted due to the conflict in Ukraine, the grounding of Vega, and now the cancellation of a showcase launch for the nascent small launcher industry.

It’s likely that an inquiry will be done to ascertain the cause and seriousness of the malfunction.

(With inputs from agencies)

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