The first release of Virgin Orbit from the UK, part of the Start Me Up mission, failed to reach orbit on January 9which represented a high-profile setback for a company that has struggled financially.
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Boeing 747 aircraft took off from Spaceport Cornwall in south west England at around 5:02pm. The aircraft flew to its designated launch location over the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland and launched the LauncherOne rocket at approximately 6:11 pm ET.
While telemetry during the live webcast of the launch was unreliable, sometimes reporting what appeared to be false speed and altitude figures, according to the report posted on the launch website. spacenewsthe company reported seven minutes later that the rocket’s upper stage and payloads had reached orbit.
“LauncherOne has successfully reached Earth orbit again! Our mission is not over yet, but congratulations to the people of the UK! This is already the first orbital mission from British soil, a huge achievement for @spacegovuk and their partners in government!!”, announced in a Virgin tweet that he later deleted.
Half an hour later chaos came
The launch appeared to be in a shore phase before a second firing of the upper stage NewtonFour engine, followed by payload deployment. But almost half an hour after the announcement of reaching orbit, the company suddenly revealed that the launch had failed..
“It seems we have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the informationVirgin announced, noting that the Boeing 747 had landed safely at Spaceport Cornwall.
As we find out more, we’re removing our previous tweet about reaching orbit. We’ll share more info when we can.
—Virgin Orbit (@VirginOrbit) January 9, 2023
In a statement published this Tuesday, January 10, Virgin Orbit said that the anomaly occurred during the flight of the second stage of the rocket when it was traveling at 17,700 kilometers per hour, less than two-thirds of the orbital speed, but did not offer more details about it. the problem.
“The first-time nature of this mission added layers of complexity that our team handled professionally; however, in the end it seems that a technical glitch prevented us from delivering the final orbitVirgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said in the statement.
The mission carried nine small satellites that the rocket would deploy into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 555 km. The release was acquired by the US National Reconnaissance Office, with the main payload being a pair of cubesats called Prometheus-2 and other US payloads.
The failure comes at a precarious time for Virgin Orbit, which has struggled to increase its launch rate and generate revenue. The company, in a Nov. 7 earnings call, reported that it closed the third quarter with $71 million in cash.
