“We’re seeing an abnormally high rate of failures for small launch vehicles,” said Spice. The rocket, less than 250 meters above the pad at the time, continued upward for 2.6 more seconds before falling back to the ground, exploding only about 20 meters from where it lifted off. ABL said that at T+10.87 seconds, the first stage suffered a “complete loss of power” that shut down its nine engines. “The team is working through our anomaly response procedures in coordination with PSCA and the FAA.”Ī week later, the company released more details about the failed launch, which carried two smallsats. “After liftoff, RS1 experienced an anomaly and shut down prematurely,” the company tweeted. There were no crowds and no silent disco at this event there was not even a livestream as the company instead provided updates on social media.Ībout 20 minutes after the scheduled liftoff, ABL announced the mission’s failure. Almost exactly 24 hours after LauncherOne was released from Cosmic Girl, ABL Space Systems launched its first RS1 rocket from Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska (PSCA) on Kodiak Island. Virgin Orbit is not the only launch company to have suffered a recent failure. “We’re in integration for our next flight and looking forward to flying from Mojave over the coming weeks.” He didn’t state when the investigation would be completed, but said Virgin Orbit is already working on modifications, like removing the filter, as it prepares to return to flight from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. “This is like a $100 part that took us out.” “Everything points to, right now, a filter that was clearly there when we assembled the rocket but was not there as the second stage engine started, meaning it was dislodged and caused mischief downstream,” he said. However, he said the data investigators had reviewed to date appeared to identify a likely cause involving a relatively inexpensive component in the propulsion system in the rocket’s second stage. 7 at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California. That investigation is ongoing, Dan Hart, president and CEO of Virgin Orbit, said on a panel Feb. The company said is started a formal investigation, which would be jointly overseen by the FAA and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch. It didn’t explain why it claimed the payload reached orbit, and provided few details about the failure.Ī few days later, it said the upper stage suffered an unspecified anomaly that shut down its engine prematurely. We are evaluating the information,” the company announced. “We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. “LauncherOne has once again successfully reached Earth orbit! Our mission isn’t over yet, but our congratulations to the people of the UK! This is already the first-ever orbital mission from British soil – an enormous achievement by and their partners in government!” the company tweeted.Ī half-hour later, though, the company retracted that claim and deleted the tweet. The telemetry appeared erratic at times, but the company announced on the webcast and social media that the second stage and its payload of seven smallsats had reached orbit, where they would coast before a second burn more than a half-hour later to circularize the orbit and release the payloads. The flight appeared to go like four previous, successful missions over the previous two years, with the rocket separating from the 747 and igniting its first stage engine, followed a few minutes later by stage separation and second stage ignition. The action was on the mission’s webcast, where viewers could follow the mission, including telemetry from the airplane and rocket. “This is like a $100 part that took us out,” Hart said the component linked to the LauncherOne failure. (Attendees were entertained by other things, including a “silent disco” where they could dance away to tunes played on wireless headphones.) The event attracted a large crowd despite the late hour and the fact that there was little for them to see other than the airplane’s takeoff, since the release of the rocket and its climb to orbit would take place off the coast of southern Ireland, far out of view. Virgin Orbit’s “Cosmic Girl” 747 aircraft, with a LauncherOne rocket slung under its left wing, headed out over the Atlantic for its mission. After months of anticipation, the first orbital launch from UK soil took off from Spaceport Cornwall in southwestern England late in the evening of January 9.
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