[Ed. note: original story submission was about the upcoming launch and this submission has been updated with the launch result --hubie]
After successfully taking off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall – which just a few weeks ago was transformed from a mere slab of empty cement at a commercial airport to the world's newest space launch operations center – and travelling to the designated drop zone, Cosmic Girl, the customized 747 that serves as the LauncherOne system's carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket.
The rocket then ignited its engines, quickly going hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage. However, at some point during the firing of the rocket's second stage engine and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, the system experienced an anomaly, ending the mission prematurely.
From the original story submission:
Seeing as Start Me Up is the "first" in several ways — it's also the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, as well as the first commercial launch from western Europe — the private space corp said it will "maintain a conservative posture with regard to system health, weather, and all other elements of scheduling." That ups the probability of a delay, unless everything falls into place for Virgin Orbit on Monday. Even so, the LauncherOne orbital launch vehicle that will be used for this mission is now attached to Cosmic Girl, the Boeing 747 aircraft that will serve as its first stage launch platform. The company had to transport LauncherOne, which was manufactured in Long Beach, California, to the UK to make the journey possible.
[...] In addition to making history, the mission will ferry satellites from seven customers, both commercial and government, to orbit. Its payload include CIRCE (Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment), which is a joint project between the UK Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the US Naval Research Laboratory, and two CubeSats for the UK Ministry of Defense's Prometheus-2 initiative.
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Virgin Orbit files for bankruptcy:
Virgin Orbit, the low-Earth orbit small payload launch company that was spun out of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, has filed for bankruptcy protection with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The bankruptcy filing follows weeks of bad news for the company, including a pause on all operations, a brief hunt for more money to continue as a going concern, and massive layoffs to try to right-size to the company's actual available budget, which today's news essentially confirms was non-existent.
Prior to this fast and furious couple week meltdown, Virgin Orbit had already shown signs that it was essentially on life support: the company's marquee first flight from a brand new British spaceport in January ended in failure due to an anomaly, and there was very little indication on when another attempt might arrive.
Virgin Orbit spun out of Virgin Galactic way back in 2017, as the Branson-backed space company divided its efforts into two separate avenues of focus: Galactic would pursue human spaceflight, targeting suborbital trips for scientists and wealth thrill-seekers. That has borne some fruit, but also hasn't yet achieved the scale and cadence of operation that it aspired to have accomplished at this stage. Orbit, meanwhile, aimed at delivering small payloads to low-Earth orbit, using small rockets that launched from the wings of a large carrier ship, a modified 747-400 commercial passenger aircraft.
[...] Virgin Orbit will seek a sale of the entire company or its assets as possible recourses to resolve its bankruptcy status, the company said in the filing.
Previously:
Even Before Monday's Launch Failure, Virgin Orbit's Finances Were Dismal
Historic UK Mission Reaches Space Falls Short of Orbit
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, @03:02PM (1 child)
Yep, looks like it is. And the mission failed.
But thank god he's around to file lawsuits and whine about how successful Musky is being
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, @03:28PM
He didn't fail, he found 1 way that doesn't work. 9999 to go!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 11, @05:26PM (3 children)
Lot of questions about commercial, corporate approaches to space. Mainly, seems we don't have good options for organizing groups for such tasks. Government agencies have to be conservative in their thinking, and have to deal with politics. As for these commercial approaches, it's hard to say if they're serious about turning a profit, or serious about space exploration, or just billionaires playing around?
The next level of space exploration should be outside our solar system. We've done a lot with telescopes, and can do lots more with them as they continue improving. But a close look is always better. What organization can last the thousands of years it could take to send probes to all the nearby star systems? Can you imagine NASA detaching from the US government, so it can survive in the event that the day comes that the US falls?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, @11:00PM
At some point, you have to admit you have a problem and get professional help. Ain't nobody sending space probes on thousand year voyages. WAKE UP!
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday January 12, @06:27AM (1 child)
You just outlined why it's not the next level of space exploration. We don't have the technological or social tools to do that level of space exploration with those conditions. We're not even close.
My take is that the next level of space exploration is more mundane and vastly more useful. We explore what we've already explored, but gathering information in order to do actual human activities in space or to protect human interests on Earth. Like support for commercial activity, ISRU (in site resource utilization), detailed exploration of the various large bodies of the Solar System (not merely a probe every few years to Mars), technology development that leads to direct commercial application, and developing the technology to track every significant sized asteroid (say 100 meters or larger) within the orbit of Jupiter.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 12, @08:18AM
Near/medium term:
Long term:
Finding all of the nearby asteroids is a given. WFIRST or LSST should help.
Breakthrough Starshot is the best hope for interstellar exploration anytime soon, and it has problems that might be unsolvable or make it nearly useless.
If the technologies needed for legit interstellar travel become available, we'll hear about it. Desperate attempts spending trillions to escape Earth with a Project Orion-like craft don't count.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 11, @05:39PM (1 child)
Sounds like a lot of speed, huh? Low earth orbit requires a speed of about 17,000 mph. And, you don't hear of astronauts and cosmonauts on the space station suffering nose bleed due to the speed. "Speed" as we common dirt dwellers think of it has no relevance in space. Once out of the gravity well, you might boost yourself to ten times that LEO speed, and you won't see it looking out the portholes. You're not going to feel it, once the engines cut off. Speed will only be meaningful if and when measured relative to some other body in space, such as the asteroid you are approaching for mining purposes. Or, the alien missile coming at you.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @10:38AM
I disagree. Speed is extremely important since it's related to velocity and the changes in velocity required to go to different places in the solar system or elsewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v [wikipedia.org]
Relevant example image in wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v#/media/File:Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg [wikipedia.org]
The higher the difference in delta-v the more it could cost (but you can sometimes get help by using planets to boost you etc).
And speed is also relevant for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect [wikipedia.org]