UK’s historic rocket launch ended in failure – so what went wrong?

The repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, carrying Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket, takes off from Spaceport Cornwall (Credits: PA)

Last night’s attempt to launch satellites into orbit from British soil met with failure after months of planning.

Although the LauncherOne rocket carried the payload successfully detached from the modified Boeing 747 that took off from Cornwall, it didn’t make it to space.

It ignited and appeared to be ascending according to plan, but then word came from Virgin Orbit, the American company operating the launch, that it had suffered an ‘anomoly’.

While the 747 – known as ‘Cosmic Girl’ – returned to Cornwall, the rocket itself and the shoebox-sized satellites it was carrying, were lost.

Matt Archer, from the UK Space Agency, said the satellite load was insured and Virgin Orbit would recover its losses.

‘The rocket will probably break up, not all of it will burn up, but certainly that’s what they will be tracking at the moment and making sure that it is coming down safely,’ he said.

‘The trajectory that it was on shouldn’t be anywhere near land.’

Spectators gathered around a replica rocket at Cornwall Airport Newquay to watch the first ever UK launch of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket (Credit: Reuters)

Mr Archer said the first stage burn would have got the rocket into basic orbit but a second stage was needed to put it 500km above the earth.

‘That didn’t happen tonight and what you have seen is that it has reached space but hasn’t reached the required orbit,’ he said.

‘While it is obviously disappointing that the mission wasn’t successful, actually we’re really proud of the fact that we’ve delivered so much here and we’ve created the conditions for launch here.

‘We’ve seen that we can do it and we will look to do it again.’

What went wrong?

Mr Archer confirmed that an investigation would now be undertaken by both Virgin Orbit and a number of government departments to try and get to the bottom of what happened.

The LauncherOne rocket was travelling successfully after deployment for about 25 minutes before the anomoly was reported. So, while there wasn’t a problem with detaching from the aircraft or initial ignition, it appears the engine was the culprit.

Whether the velocity had something to do with it is uncertain. The rocket’s first stage successfully took it to about 12,900kph while the second stage put it at a cruising speed of 28,000kph. This was the point at which the anomoly was reported.

‘The second-stage engine had a technical anomaly and didn’t reach the required orbit,’ Mr Archer said.

This isn’t the first time that Virgin Orbit has suffered a problem with the system. It’s only been in operation since 2020 and failed on its maiden outing. However, this was followed up by four successful flights.

It had been hoped the launch would kickstart the UK entering the space race over 70 years after the British Space Programme was established in 1952.

Instead, the experts will be left combing through the data to find out what happened. But, they are confident of a second attempt.

Dan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, 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.’

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A technical problem with the second-stage engine stopped the rocket from reaching orbit.