UK space launch: Historic rocket mission set to blast off
The first ever orbital space launch from British soil is getting ready to make history.
Monday’s mission from Newquay Airport in Cornwall will see a repurposed 747 jumbo jet release a rocket over the Atlantic to take nine satellites high above the Earth.
The mission will start at the airport just before midnight GMT.
If it succeeds, it will be a major milestone for UK space – the birth of home-grown launch industry.
“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,” said Melissa Thorpe, who heads up Spaceport Cornwall.
“What I think people have seen here in Cornwall is a small team that lives and breathes this county deliver something quite incredible.”
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit was founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. He had one of his old passenger airlines converted to carry a rocket – LauncherOne – underneath its left wing.
When 747 leaves Newquay, it will head west over the Atlantic to a designated launch zone just off the coast of the Irish countries of Kerry and Cork.
At the appropriate moment and at an altitude of 35,000ft, the Virgin jet will release the rocket, which will then ignite its first-stage engine to begin the climb in orbit.
