Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket crashed back to Earth toward its fiery doom after failing to reach orbit and carry seven payloads on board. The rocket’s hellish descent was videotaped and showcased the ill-fated return journey from space.
Spanish Meteor Network observer Ramón López caught the rocket re-entering Earth’s atmosphere from Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa. Published the images YouTubelike her twitter.
The video shows the second phase of LauncherOne returning to Earth. “In doing so, friction with the atmosphere creates a slow-moving fireball in the sky, causing it to disintegrate, heat up and burn,” Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in astrodynamics at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, told Gizmodo. email “The rocket stage at that time still carried payloads attached to it—they burned with the rocket scene.”
Based on the time the video was taken, its geographic location, viewing direction as seen from Lanzarote, and the object’s direction of movement, Langbroek identified the fiery object in the video as LauncherOne. “The speed that seemed so slow in the sky, for a long time, “And the overall appearance of the fireball is also consistent with the re-entry of an artificial object into the upper atmosphere.”
Name of Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing aircraft cosmic girlIt took off at 5:02 pm ET on Monday from the Cornwall Cosmodrome in England. It carries the LauncherOne booster rocket tucked under its left wing. The mission was supposed to mark. First orbital launch from British soilIt opens new avenues for the space industry in the UK.
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However, LauncherOne experienced an anomaly failed to reach orbit during the ignition of the second-stage engine. “The upper stage has not reached the velocity necessary to bring itself and its payloads into orbit around Earth,” Langbroek said. Said. “Although it briefly reached space, it then fell back to E.Due to this insufficient velocity, it is returned to Earth in a suborbital ballistic orbit.
The mission, dubbed “Start Me Up”, carried satellites for seven commercial and government customers, including two cube satellites for the UK Ministry of Defense. AMAN Earth observation satellite from Oman, and the sixth satellite, Stork-6 It will be included in Poland’s Earth-observing cube satellite constellation.
All of the satellites suffered the same fate, burning up with the rocket during re-entry. It was a disappointing end to a highly anticipated mission intended to usher in a new era for the European space industry. Virgin Orbit and the UK Space Agency have launched an investigation to determine the cause of the anomaly in the rocket.
“We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, take corrective action, and return to orbit as soon as we complete a full investigation and mission assurance process,” Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said in a statement. Declaration. Following the mission failure, Virgin Orbit’s shares took a big hit, dropping nearly 22% in premarket trading Tuesday morning, according to NBC. reported. The company’s financial situation was already looking somewhat bleak, with Ars Technica reporting a $139.5 million net loss through September 30, 2022, with Virgin Orbit. reported Based on the company’s quarterly earnings.
“We will work closely with Virgin Orbit as we investigate what’s causing the anomaly in the coming days and weeks,” Matt Archer, director of commercial spaceflight at the UK Space Agency, said in a statement. sent o Twitter.
Despite the recent setback, the UK still appears determined to establish launch capability from British soil. “Despite this, the project has managed to create a horizontal launch capability at Spaceport Cornwall and we are committed to being the leading provider of commercial small satellite launches in Europe with vertical launches planned from Scotland by 2030.” said.. While LauncherOne is grounded for now, the UK may look to other companies to get orbital launches off the ground and into orbit.
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