Virgin Orbit, one of the divisions of British businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, announced the unsuccessful launch of the LauncherOne rocket with satellites, they were not launched into Earth orbit. The statement was published on the company’s website.
“The historic first attempt to launch satellites from British soil reached space last night but ultimately missed its target orbit. <...> At some point during the launch of the second-stage rocket engine, when the rocket was moving at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour (about 17,700 km / h – Vedomosti), an anomaly occurred in the system, due to which the mission was prematurely terminated ” , the message says.
The company noted that this was preceded by the successful launch of engines and spacewalk. As a result, the carrier aircraft with the crew on board landed successfully. It is specified that this was the first attempt to launch a rocket from the territory of the UK, before that launches were carried out from the territory of the United States.
The first successful launch of the rocket took place on January 17, 2021. Then, by order of NASA, the LauncherOne air launch launch vehicle launched nine CubeSat microsatellites into orbit from under the wing of the aircraft. This was preceded by an unsuccessful attempt: on May 25, 2020, after the launch of LauncherOne, the security system turned off the first stage engines for an unknown reason and the rocket fell.
To launch the rocket, Virgin Orbit uses a modified Boeing 747-400 called Cosmic Girl. The carrier aircraft with a rocket fixed under the wing drops it after climbing, then the rocket turns on its own engines and goes into near-Earth orbit at an altitude of about 500 km. LauncherOne itself has a length of 21 m, a mass of 30 tons, two stages and a speed of up to 28,000 km/h.