Rocket anomaly reported in UK space mission

"The first UK rocket taking satellites into space has suffered an anomaly - Virgin Orbit says it is evaluating the information
The mission saw a repurposed 747 jumbo jet release the LauncherOne rocket over the Atlantic to take nine satellites high above the Earth
In the past, satellites produced in the UK have been sent to foreign facilities to make their journey into space
This first foray into orbital launch from UK territory is actually using an American company, Virgin Orbit, that was founded by Sir Richard Branson
The British entrepreneur had one of his old passenger airliners converted to carry a rocket underneath its left wing"

Rocket anomaly reported in UK space mission

Obviously some kind of malfunction but my money is on the Aliens.

You can see some grainy footage here showing telemetry and cameras etc.



There was also a big meteor earlier.

a reply to: Grenade

Space is hard.

Sounds like fairing did not separate or otherwise separated incorrectly, resulting in a chaotic spin over 5Gs and a loss of the rocket. Fairing separation failure isn't unheard of, even happened last year resulting in the loss of Astra's Rocket 3.3.

I live just over the bay from the launch.
Everyone seemed to be excited about it, which started off well.
Just a minor setback, hopefully the next one will be sorted.

a reply to: Grenade

Apparently, something went wrong with the second stage and it just did not have the juice to reach low earth orbit.

Better luck next time.

I watched the plane take off then monitored it on FlightRadar.
In the preview of the flight they said they should reach 35,000ft to launch.
On FR they never got above 30,000ft. I don't think that was the main problem but needs to be looked at next time?