Watch the video: Historic British space mission fails
With this converted Boeing 747 aircraft, a 21-meter-long carrier rocket was to be brought to a height of around eleven kilometers over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday evening. The start was at Newquay Airport in South West England. However, according to the US company Virgin Orbit, the attempt failed, so the rocket did not reach Earth orbit, where it was supposed to deploy nine satellites for civil and defense purposes. What exactly happened was initially unclear. The plane, meanwhile, returned safely and as planned to Earth. In the next few days there will be an investigation to find out how the technical failure could have happened and how to proceed.