Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit failed Monday on its first attempt to launch a test satellite into space aboard a rocket carried aloft by a Boeing 747 and released over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California.
The rocket was supposed to fall for a few seconds before the first of its two stages ignited and hurtled it down the coast toward the South Pole for insertion of its demonstration payload into a low Earth orbit.
The purpose of the flight was to gather data on every step of the launch process rather than to have a useful satellite in orbit; the demonstration payload was described as an inert mass, and the intended orbit was very low to avoid contributing to the problem of space junk.Advertisement Virgin Orbit, headquartered in Long Beach, is a sister company of Virgin Galactic, the company Branson founded to carry passengers on suborbital flights into the lower reaches of space. Virgin Galactic is preparing to begin operations in southern New Mexico.Get our Boiling Point newsletter for the latest on the power sector, water wars and more — and what they mean for California.
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