Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit rocket LauncherOne flops on its maiden voyage

SIR Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit rocket has flopped on its maiden voyage.

LauncherOne was released from the belly of an adapted Boeing 747 at 35,000ft.

Reuters

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit rocket has flopped on its maiden voyage[/caption]

EPA

LauncherOne was released from the belly of an adapted Boeing 747 at 35,000ft[/caption]

The 70ft rocket’s engines fired up, but Monday’s mission over the Pacific was aborted moments later.

The firm released few details but said: “An anomaly occurred early in first stage flight. We’ll learn more as our engineers analyse the mountain of data we collected.”

The 747 had taken off from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port.

Virgin Orbit, which is preparing six more rockets for test flights, split from Branson’s space tourism project Virgin Galactic three years ago to tap into demand for small satellite launches.

Rival entrepreneur Elon Musk’s firm Space X is to become the first private company to send astronauts into space in what experts have called a “major milestone” for the space industry.

His Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station ends Nasa’s reliance on Russia since the Space Shuttle programme was axed in 2011.

Falcon 9 will launch at Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre with two crew.

PA:Press Association

The 70ft rocket’s engines fired up but Monday’s mission over the Pacific was aborted moments later[/caption]

EPA

The 747 had taken off from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port[/caption]

AP:Associated Press

Virgin Orbit said: ‘An anomaly occurred early in first stage flight. We’ll learn more as our engineers analyse the mountain of data we collected’[/caption]

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