Commercial small satellite launch company Virgin Orbit has reported that its first demonstration launch, on May 25, had had to be aborted because of an “anomaly” that occurred shortly after the rocket’s first stage had ignited. Virgin Orbit uses an air-launched rocket system in which the launch vehicle, designated LauncherOne, is carried aloft by a modified Boeing 747 ‘Mothership’ and then released. The company stated that all the pre-flight checks had been successfully carried out. The Mothership, named Cosmic Girl, had successfully taken off and carried the LauncherOne rocket to the launch area and launch altitude. All launch preliminaries were successfully concluded, and multiple telemetry dishes had had a clear lock on LauncherOne. The rocket release had been clean and the booster engine had ignited successfully. The anomaly had occurred not long afterwards.
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