It should have been a historic night: Britain wanted to join the exclusive club of states capable of launching rockets into orbit with a space mission. This project has now failed for the time being due to an “anomaly”.
Launched late Monday night aboard a converted Boeing 747 aircraft named Cosmic Girl, the rocket was the first to launch from British soil. It will launch nine satellites into orbit for smuggler detection and weather observation.
The rocket broke free from the Boeing 747 more than 10,600 meters above the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket then ignited its engines, quickly reaching supersonic speed and also successfully reached space, said the company Virgin Orbit, which organized the rocket launch from Cornwall in the southwest England, in a statement shared on Twitter.
Mission “terminated early”
But as the rocket was about to enter orbit and deliver the satellites, there was an “anomaly that prevented us from reaching orbit,” Virgin Orbit said on Twitter. As a result, the mission was “terminated prematurely,” it said. So you did indeed reach the universe, but not in the intended orbit.
The Boeing “Cosmic Girl”, which departed at 22:02 local time (23:02 CET), returned unharmed to Cornwall Spaceport at Newquay Airport along with the crew. In addition to the British space agency, Virgin Orbit, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, is also involved in the spaceport.
18,500 satellites in space by 2031
For a long time, satellites were only launched by state institutions. However, most spaceports in Europe are now privately operated. The industry has experienced tremendous growth with the creation of numerous small start-ups. It is estimated that between 2022 and 2031, about 18,500 small satellites weighing less than 500 kilograms will be launched. In the previous decade, however, there were only about 4,600.
Source: Krone
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