Virgin Orbit rocket suffers anomaly during air launch on first UK mission

Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl carrier plane deployed the "Start Me Up" mission's LauncherOne rocket for an air launch on Jan. 9, 2022. The rocket was deployed about an hour after the plane lifted off from Spaceport Cornwall in the UK. Full Story: https://www.space.com/virgin-orbit-first-united-kingdom-launch-failure The rocket suffered an anomaly during the flight and failed to deliver its payload to orbit, according to Chris Relf, Virgin Orbit director of systems engineering and verification. Credit: Virgin Orbit