Virgin Orbit doesn't Virgin Orbit, the Beardy Branson-backed outfit that slings satellites into space from a 747, has failed in its first attempt to launch from the UK. As The Register reported yesterday, Virgin Orbit's plan was to take off from Cornwall and fly west over the Atlantic Ocean to an altitude of 35,000 feet before loosing a rocket …
On the live stream it was fairly obvious something was wrong as around the end of the 2nd stage first burn and the start of the coasting phase, the telemetry showed it hadn’t reached orbital velocity, the altitude went down rapidly and it decelerated. It stopped showing descent and went to zero mph at 244,500 feet, presumably when it broke up. It took them 25 minutes after this to announce there was anomaly.
The live stream before that was off the scale bullshit with random Americans spewing disingenuous platitudes and Richard Branson wittering on about when the Virgin Records label signed the Rolling Stones.
The live stream before that was off the scale bullshit with random Americans spewing disingenuous platitudes...
Then you haven't seen the 2 gentlemen that were doing their (M&S) talk on the BBC News channel (Outside Source). Now, I'm no Brit, so am not familiar with all the talking heads of the UK government. But there was a bearded gentleman there who was spouting so much hot air and (to use the correct en_GB vernacular ;) rubbish in line with "Make britAin Great Again" while also in the same sentence, pointing out the benefits of this space stuff for those "suffering during the current cost of living crises", that even I, as a Scandinavian, got what (s)mogg he is breathing on a daily basis.
Ah well, to stay with the British vernacular...
O dear. How sad. Never mind. Keep moving, nothing to see here...
I see what you mean, but we are probably seeing different renditions and flavours of the same thing. Like you write:
people trying to justify this stunt and come up with reasons that it’s a good idea
I suppose that the benefits of this satellite launching for those struggling to pay their heating bills currently might be... yeah, well..
And then I didn't tell you about the other gentleman in that same interview. He was really happy that he personally now just had to hop in a car and drive down the A (sorry, not familiar with the road system in Wales) to launch a satellite instead of flying to Florida.
Like you say, so many good reasons...
I was about to say the same thing. The bit between South Wales and Cornwall is clearly misrepresented on maps. It's actually a full day's drive if you hit traffic.
It's probably better to take the M4 across the Severn crossing, though, rather than waiting for the Aust ferry. It stopped operating in 1966.
Going down the A30 in summer can sometimes take longer than a flight to Orlando.
It's probably better to take the M4 across the Severn crossing, though, rather than waiting for the Aust ferry.
However to get from Wales to Cornwall, it might be better to use the M4 then M5 or A38.
Bravo, chaps! A thoroughly British thread. None of that new-fangled satnav nonsense here, just manly chat about driving routes like God intended. I only wish there was a Union Jack icon.
I think you mean M4, M5 and A38. FWIW, the A303 is probably too far south to be used to get from Wales to Newquay.
The M5 stops at Exeter, and IMHO, you really don't want to use the A38 rather than the M5 between the Seven crossing(s) and Exeter. Although it's rated as an A road, it's terribly slow even at the best of times because of the towns and villages it goes through.
The only other A road would be the A39 along the north coast, and is worse than the A38, what with Porlock Hill and the hairpin bends around Linton.
The road infrastructure in South West England is shockingly bad, and that is probably why they're adding more dual carriageway sections on the A303, although that will only really move the bottlenecks somewhere else.
Yes, I was watching the telemetry more closely than normal as the coverage they were providing was abysmal, but spotted it was clearly not working as it should be, that flight path tracker where it ended with a vertical line going straight up with negative speed was a big clue.
So I was expecting RUD to be called, but it felt like they waited till Cosmic Girl was back on the ground before calling it, hence the embarrassing yay it's in orbit tweets, oh wait no its not.
Can you post a link to the bit where you think it went wrong?
I can't find where "the telemetry showed it hadn’t reached orbital velocity, the altitude went down rapidly and it decelerated." except for the moment when the telemetry suddenly goes off the scale and then to zero within the space of a few seconds. As far as I can tell, it could've been shot down by that Russian ship that recently deployed to the Atlantic. With the number of YouTube idiots posting "We're actually nuking Russia" I guess I couldn't blame them..
So far as I can tell, it is all accelerating and gaining altitude right up until the 1:57 mark
It steadily gets to 8004 mph top speed, then the telemetry craps out and it all goes to pot. I don't see any earlier indications of failure than that, except for Grant Shapps and Richard Branson.
Actually my guess would be an oxygen leak - between 1:57 and 2:00 while the telemetry is still working, you can see the oxygen steadily going down much faster than the fuel. Probably it had a fire onboard at that point and plopped into the ocean a few minutes later. The altitude does descend steadily from there as you say, with the rest of the telemetry lost, so it's not clear if that might just be coming from a filter at the ground station with the actual craft long since exploded, or if it's genuine altitude data from a plummeting craft. I'll wait for the write-up :)
Beagle 2 was so close, though. Just one thing got stuck after launch, otherwise it'd have been a success.
They'll know what's gone wrong in this case. A fair shout might be that the long gap between manufacturing the rocket and launch has allowed the gremlins to creep in (either parts going bad with age, or too much "tinkering").
The first Black Arrow satellite launch attempt failed on a second stage problem, but they were ready to go again and successful within 2 months. I wonder if Virgin Orbit will be back for another go so quickly.
Virgin Orbit are planning on doing a similar stunt in Brazil and another in Australia so I am starting to feel like this is a travelling circus act.
The biggest advantage is that an aeroplane carrying a rocket can take off in weather that would keep a rocket from launching from a fixed launch pad. The plane can take the rocket to somewhere with nice weather for a launch. Launching from the ideal latitude for the destination lets you build a satellite heavy enough to use the full performance of the rocket.
On the other hand, if the rocket is seriously overpowered for the payload then it can launch from a non-ideal latitude and you can select* a fixed launch site with mostly good weather.
* In real life launch sites are built on nature reserves: no people around to complain about the noise and the rockets keep property developers away from the wild life.
I think the advantage is even more fundamental, you don't need anything other than an runway and support for a 747 to accommodate the physical side of the launch. Compare that to all the other launches and it makes a huge amount of sense.
Does it matter if the payload is not that large as the focus now appears to be on filling space with commercial Cubsats?
"Does it matter if the payload is not that large as the focus now appears to be on filling space with commercial Cubsats?"
Cubesats tend to be very limited. The real stuff that makes money mostly won't fit on an air launched system. Where it can make sense is to be able to deploy a small sensor platform very quickly into an orbit that would take a lot of delta-V from Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg or some other big launch facility.
"Virgin Orbit are planning on doing a similar stunt in Brazil and another in Australia so I am starting to feel like this is a travelling circus act."
More like a mobile bank. "First" launches from various countries and accumulate government grants and subsidies in the name of patriotism :-)
"Virgin Orbit are planning on doing a similar stunt in Brazil and another in Australia so I am starting to feel like this is a travelling circus act."
It can make sense for them to launch from different countries due to technology transfer regulations and the desired orbits. The down side is there isn't much of a call for this type of launcher. Its home base in Mojave, CA is the birthplace of nearly all aircraft launched systems with another just up the road on display at the North gate of Edwards Air Force Base. Stargazer, White Knight (1 & 2), Stratolaunch and VO's Cosmic Girl. I have a photo somewhere that I took showing Cosmic Girl, Stargazer and Stratolaunch all in one frame. Too bad White Knight 2 wasn't there. WK1 is retired and off at a museum, I think.
would have made for an interesting couple of minutes fraction of a second.
There, FTFY.
"They'll know what went wrong," too, is probably going to depend entirely on what they can tell from the telemetry. It will probably be of the nature of "it was working up until this point, and then we lost telemetry." They might know exactly what it was trying to do at the point it failed, but it might not tell them why it didn't work.
More detailed analysis might be difficult on the melted bits of metal at the bottom of the Atlantic.
They combined a renowned snuffware company (see bottom right of the virgin orbit carrier plane path, link below) and a Boing 747 to make a Brexit. What did they expect?
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/006A/production/_127560100_virgin_orbit_rocket_launch_path_map_640-nc.png.webp
Currently batting a 4/6 success rate.
The 747 is the only currently flying commercial airframe that's appropriate, because it was designed in a time when jet engines were both less reliable and harder to ship.
The 747 has a hardpoint on one wing designed to carry a spare engine for transport between airfields - or for testing new engine designs at altitude.
Cosmic Girl carries a tiny rocket instead of engine #5.
Interesting you should mention that, because when I worked for a Uni space physics dept, we watched one of the Pegasus launches live over the new fangled Internet as a member of staff had a vested interest in the outcome (I think it was one of the STEP missions) and that one failed. As I was watching This launch last night I had the thought "Last time I watched a rocket get launched from under a plane it failed",... ooops, jinx.
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So tiny they have strip most of the interior of the 747 to save weight just so it can take off with it,I'm not sure how sustainable or reusable this method is when there are metal fatigue considerations on air frames to worry about and your launch stage carries crew who absolutely don't want the wing to fall off.
Is there some info available to confirm your opening statement there? Only, comparing the estimated mass of the rocket against the known payload carrying capabilities of a 747-400 doesn't suggest any need for Cosmic Girl to have gone on a weight-saving exercise just in order to get off the ground carrying the rocket. I'd hazard a guess that reducing fuel consumption and improving the climb performance during the release phase of the mission are more likely to have been the reason behind it if indeed it was done specifically for these Virgin Orbit flights.
However, bearing in mind that this airframe was originally in use at Virgin Galactic as part of its operations, it may well have been that the cabin had been stripped out for reasons related to those flights, and it was simply transferred over to Virgin Orbit in that state.
OTOH, it's equally likely that the cabin had been stripped as soon as the aircraft was transferred out of the Virgin Atlantic fleet, because if you know you're no longer going to be lugging 500+ passengers around on each flight, then why wouldn't you make use of the remaining value in the cabin fittings by transferring them back into the Virgin Atlantic engineering spares stock, or by selling them onto the general spares market, rather than just leaving them in-situ to gather dust?
Remember most of the last passenger 747s were prematurely retiired in 2020 due to the zero demand for large aircraft due to Covid. Many had many years of intensive use - flying up 14 hours a day (LHR-JFK-LHR). So easy to choose an aircraft with years left in the locker - which will only fly the occasional 3 hour punt a rocket mission.
Why fly with seats when you can save weight and fuel? Maybe make a few bob like other airlines flogging them off. But I see they kept the nice spiral staircase. I'nm sure Mr Bloor would love one to step up to his rather fetching JT8D TurboTable:
"But I see they kept the nice spiral staircase."
A spiral that's been held tightly at both ends and pulled hard, so that it now resembles a straight line, yes?
And yes, they've retained that, given that it'd make getting to the flight deck a bit tricky otherwise...
"So tiny they have strip most of the interior of the 747 to save weight just so it can take off with it,I'm not sure how sustainable or reusable this method is when there are metal fatigue considerations on air frames to worry about and your launch stage carries crew who absolutely don't want the wing to fall off."
There's no point in all of that interior buildout for an aircraft launching a rocket. Weight (or mass really) is the core metric around which planes get designed. The rocket under the wing does affect aerodynamics, but a lighter plane means less runway to take off and a faster climb to altitude. Since the operation is meant to be portable, a lot of gear can be put inside the plane to be taken with them to support missions. To be able to take the rocket inside in sections would have been pretty neat along with the ground support equipment.
It's a bit of a stretch to claim the launch is from British soil, when the first part is simply transporting the rocket to it's actual launch site over the Atlantic.
If anything it was launched closer to Ireland than the UK. Doesn't the Virgin empire have some offshoots in Ireland? Can't they claim it's their launch?
Spaceport Cork?
The original plan was to integrate the payload in the UK, then fly to the US, land and refuel, then take off and launch.
Quite a few people pointed out that they weren't justified in calling that a UK launch, so they changed the plan.
The launch angle is odd though, looks to be slightly retrograde - presumably to avoid launching over land or busy seaways.
That angle wasn't really that odd - you should look at the launch angles most polar launches from the US (both East & West coast) take.
Normally the initial launch is at an odd angle to avoid land but then the second (or later stages) then perform a dog-leg maneuver to change it into it's desired orbit.
That said, I did see somewhere the trajectory was something like 137 degrees which is still east of south. Some of the maps used in some diagrams were pretty poor which would help to confuse things
You would want to travel south before launch to take advantage of the fact that the speed of rotation of the Earth is greater the closer you get to the equator. And I've not seen the flight path, but I would expect that they launched in an eastward direction to take advantage of the rotational speed of the Earth to get a boost to help achieve orbital speed.
This is why most launches take place going east on the eastern side of any landmass, as the craft will be travelling over the sea in case of failure.
It's a bit of a stretch to claim the launch is from British soil, when the first part is simply transporting the rocket to it's actual launch site over the Atlantic.
It’s using the Boeing as a first stage. Just like launches from Florida use a rocket as a first stage and then somewhere over the Atlantic it drops the first stage and then another booster actually takes the payload to orbit.
But this is just a team from the US using a runway in Cornwall for no actual pragmatic reason than a bit of flag waving.
"the UK Space Agency insisted they posed no danger and were expected to burn or break up over the north Atlantic..." https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/09/uks-first-orbital-rocket-mission-takes-off-from-cornwall
Ah well, what's a bit more Branson-generated e-waste in the ocean? They were so keen to have a "British" launch but were apparently much less bothered about the rubbish at sea.
> fly west over the Atlantic Ocean to an altitude of 35,000 feet
Exactly how much "british soil" is there at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic?
For extra points, can anyone explain to me how a rocket made in the USA, being dropped from a jet made by Boing, counts as a "British" launch?
By the same measure, the UK's only successful satellite launch vehicle - Black Arrow, in 1971 should be counted as an Australian launch.
> Black Arrow was built on the Isle of Wight at the former Saunders Roe works so that part of the project was British
Quite. However, according to the media this test flight was British because the plane took off from a part of the UK. So using their rules (which make no sense) the place of launch i.e. the last piece of ground the vehicle(s) were in contact with, determines the nationality of the venture.
Fortunately, Kourou is in French Guiana which is part of the EU so ESA's launches legitimately count as european, rather than south-american.
Last year there were hundreds of rocket launches, deploying thousands of satellites.
It's such early days yet, imagine how reliable trains and steamships were at a similar stage of their development.
As a resident of the left-hand island (bottom half) of the right side of the pond there is still a lot to be admired about right-hand island.
A lot.
It actually did say that between the launch and the confirmation of failure. This is from one of the "live blogs" :
Science Minister George Freeman said: “This genuinely is a historic moment for Britain. We’ve won the space race in Europe.”
Methinks the science minister should learn to wait for evidence before asserting facts.
However the desperation to brag about something making him end up looking foolish is pretty funny. But it's also pathetic how Britain's 50 year and counting membership of ESA is being deliberately downplayed here in favour of some cheap jingoism.
Probably depends on what you mean when you say, "Europe". The continent of Europe, which decidedly doesn't contain French Guiana, the EU, which does, or possibly even the European continental plate (on which a large part of Iceland sits as well), which, again, doesn't...
Or the European country France, which does. It's a DOM, not a TOM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_France
They may indeed try that, but that'd piss off all the non-EU ESA members (like Canada, UK, Switzerland, Norway, only one of whom has Brexited) who between them contribute nearly 15% of the ESA budget. Brussels might want to wrest control towards itself, but France and Germany (well, mostly Germany I expect) are probably going to wonder why they're being asked to contribute more and lose access to some key facilities.
Why wait for evidence?
There are lies and bullshit at stake here. Plus tasty soundbites to be spoon-fed to a gullible mainstream media that can't be arsed to fact-check anything.
The latest incompetent buffoon to impersonate a science minister doesn't know Germany won the space race in Europe ~80 years ago.
Thanks, but as a cheese-eating Bonapartist I must restore the truth. France alone would never have had the success Ariane experienced without our European friends.
But thanks for this brief moment of French Glory, much appreciated ;-)
As for the failed launch, that's too bad but indeed space is a complicated thing. I'm just not sure to understand what they are trying to achieve here. I imagine that the payload must be quite small compared to what the Arianes, Saturns, and other Falcon 9's are capable of ? What's the point exactly ? Interweb-for-all constellations ? More tiny crap in orbit ? Have nobody watched "Gravity" ffs ?
(I admit I didn't read much about this endeavour)
Lastly, I sense here some despise towards Sir Richard. Again I don't follow his life with much interest but he looks like a decent billionaire to me, compared to the Bezos, Dysons and Musks. So he's not such a Nice Guy after all ?
OK, he also wants a piece of the space tourism cake, but isn't this a trait of all aging filthy rich guys ? Let him (her) who is sure he/she wouldn't indulge into some serious rocket fun, with the appropriate funds, cast the first stone !
"So he's not such a Nice Guy after all ?"
Seems to me that it's almost ingrained in the English psyche to despise success. Basically, royalty, nobility, and the upper classes know success, and anybody else is either lucky or a world class con artist, both of whom should wise up and bloody well stay where they belong...
...and then they have the audacity to whinge when somebody who gets successful buggers off elsewhere (usually America). At least Branson is willing to wave the union flag with some measure of pride (even if it is very, very, cringe).
"More tiny crap in orbit ?"
Didn't I read recently that some outfit (Facebook?) has obtained permits to sling a few hundred satellites into orbit? That's separate to and in addition to the bazillion SpaceX ones.
Soon it'll be "interesting" trying to work out a schedule to get anything up there without risking it hitting something along the way.
"but as a cheese-eating Bonapartist"
I pretend. The bottom corner of Brittany, nearly 21 years now. :)
"he also wants a piece of the space tourism cake, but isn't this a trait of all aging filthy rich guys ?"
Well, yeah, I suppose it's the last unconquered frontier. Just not sure that we should be populating another planet with people like Elon...
Still, it's an interesting new twist that a lot of the recent space advances have been rich guys in a pissing contest, rather than governments doing it like in the olden days.
He's got plenty of company - it's good enough for
* Monaco-based Sir Jim Ratcliffe (patriotically waving the flag for Brexit and his INEOS Grenadier)
* BVI-based Sir Geoffrey Cox (patriotically waving the flag for Brexit and representing his constituents of West Devon)
* France-based Lord Rothermere (patriotically waving the flag for Brexit and the Daily Mail)
* Channel-island based Frederick Barclay (patriotically waving the flag for Brexit and the Daily Telegraph)
Seeing a trend here?
That would be a geographical matter.
I consider Arianne to be European, as the everyone's favourite reliable source of knowledge, Wikipedia - "The system was designed as an expendable launch system by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), the French government's space agency, "
It failed.
Why? I don't know.
Is this a problem? Yes
Will they fix it? No doubt
What have most commentards here learned from this mission as simple onlookers? Apparently nothing
What should they have learned? Flying a rocket to orbit is a damn hard thing to do, dangerous and subject to multiple chances of failure.
What else they should have learned - be honest. Don't try to hide the fact that it went wrong, especially when the world is watching live. That's a bit duh.
Shit happens. Look how many times SpaceX made crowd pleasing explosions before they pulled off an even bigger crowd pleaser by landing the rockets afterwards, like something right out of a sci-fi movie...
I would have thought 'Fired' was the appropriate word, as opposed to 'Launched'
Subtle semantics sure, but if I'm flying a big ass aircraft like a 747, with munitions hanging from a wing, then I'm firing a rocket, not launching it shurely?
Which is why (not paying attention) I thought they had constructed a wee launchpad in Cornwall. That would certainly have been a launch from Britain.
Launching is what is proposed from the Northern Litho-Spaceport(s) Light blue touch paper - retire to a safe distance. Rocket go whooosh.
Just odd connotations of language I suppose - do aircraft have rocket launchers which they fire rockets from, or launch rockets from ?
Well that's 5 minutes of my life thinking about it I won't get back...next
Presumably the thrusters went on strike.
Isn't it cheaper to practice with dummy payloads until it actually works? Satellites cost money and take a lot of effort to build.
Maybe there is a reason that NASA use rockets rather than 747s.
Well not really because then you have to fund the launch costs yourself, this way the people willing to put their satellites on your rocket pay for most of the launch and hence your development/research costs, and the deal is they get a discount to try again on a a different flight if it all goes wrong as you can't insure them.
The reason NASA don't use 747s is because this really isn't the future of space launches, 30 years ago it might have been for a while when satellite launches were the preserve of governments only paying millions, but you'll always be able to haul more payload to orbit with a rocket launch, the key to cost per kilo to make space launches cheaper is the stuff SpaceX are doing.
To be fair, the purpose of dropping it from a plane isn't the speed it is done at, but more the altitude. Of course, the rocket still has to get to orbital velocity, but it doesn't have to do it from ground level, carrying all the fuel it needs to lift it to that altitude (and the fuel to lift the fuel). There's a reason that the first stage of a rocket is usually the biggest, and also why it gets jettisoned when it is empty.
Specifically the lower air pressure at altitude rather than the closer distance to orbit (30,000ft out of 500km is pretty negligible)
Rocket motor nozzle shapes are very different for a rocket burning at sea level air pressure and in vacuum. Starting the rocket at 40,000ft, with 25% sea level air pressure, means you can design a rocket nozzle much closer to optomised for vacuum
I'm British and don't like failing.
But the one thing we're really, really bad at is admitting we're not quite as good as we'd like to think in certain fields.
To me, space and the UK, are not a match. You'll get the odd willy waver like Branson with his "anything is possible" attitude, but as we can see here, it perhaps isn't. Good marks for trying though Dick.
Did anyone notice the levels of the propellant fuel, O2 and another one, they were on the low side
When I last looked, before seperation, the Propellant level was only at 10% of max capacity.
I wondered how long they expected the burn to be, but it didn't appear to burn for more than a few seconds!
It makes you wonder of the guy tasked with filling it, got bored and stopped early
I think the O2 pressure was good, at >3000 PSI (Wish I'd screen captured the readings)
Anyhow, my son was there in person watching the take off (-2 at midnight up at St Mawgan)
I guess there will be a discovery+ 4 hour special about frozen 'O' rings and leaking fuel!
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