After taking off from Cornwall, the Virgin Orbit plane flew to 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean where it jettisoned the rocket and satellites.
Head of Spaceport Cornwall, Melissa Thorpe on the aircraft pan by Cosmic Girl, a specially adapted 747, which carries a rocket at Spaceport Cornwall
In a series of tweets, Virgin Orbit said: “We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information. “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.”
The plane took off horizontally from the new facility at Cornwall Airport in Newquay while carrying the rocket under a wing. “It hasn’t gone exactly to plan but we’ve done everything that we said we were going to do at Spaceport.“It’s gutting and we all heard at different times and when we got together there were tears, and it was very upsetting.
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