Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

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Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#1 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Nov 08, 2022 10:28 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... space-crew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit

They are used to operating in extreme temperatures at their home base in the Mojave desert but American crew and technicians who are in the UK for a historic space mission are facing a very different challenge – the persistence of the Cornish rain and wind.

Asked what the issues were in organising a space adventure from the far south-west of Britain, launch director Deenah Sanchez immediately flagged up the Cornish climate. “Honestly, getting used to the weather. In southern California we have extreme heat. Our systems are designed to take heat, humidity. Here it’s different.”

Sanchez said staff were working hard to get used to the weather and extra checks on equipment were having to be done. “Plus there’s a lot of things on wheels that have to be tethered down. It’s been interesting but fun.”

Within the next few weeks – if all goes to plan and a suitable weather window emerges – a Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl converted to carry a rocket primed to propel satellites into space will take off from the state-of-the-art Spaceport Cornwall facility near Newquay. The plane will soar to 35,000ft and release the rocket that will whizz nine satellites into orbit – completing the first ever satellite launch from UK soil.

At a VIP and press day on Tuesday, visitors were allowed to peer into the clean room where the satellites are being prepped and a hangar where they will be loaded on to the rocket. Outside, Cosmic Girl sat on an apron being battered the wind and showers but, at one point, illuminated by a rainbow.

The weather is not the only stumbling block. The mission - codenamed operation Start Me Up after the Rolling Stones hit – is still waiting for the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to grant the licence that will allow it to fly with the rocket and satellites. It had been hoped the flight would take place in the summer, then the autumn but it is now looking likely that the mission will not go until December.

Asked if it was definitely going to happen, Ian Annett, the deputy CEO of the UK Space Agency, replied: “Of course.” He said the licensing process was “immensely complex” as this was something that was being done for the first time in the UK but insisted: “We’re on track to deliver a launch in 2022, which has always been our objective.”

Dan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, the company leading the mission, said it was about providing a service to the customers who want their satellites in orbit but also about opening up a “gateway to space” in Cornwall. Hart said the company was “anxious” for the flight to go ahead as soon as it could. “We’re in a little bit of a tricky spot right now but we’re progressing.”

Hart said the British space sector had been a vibrant community for decades, and a leader in the development of small satellites – the sort that this mission will send into space. “This is the beginning of a huge push forward,” he added.

Lucy Edge, the chief operating officer of the Satellite Applications Catapult, which works to grow the UK space ecosystem, said: “We’re really good at building small satellites, testing them and we’re pretty good at operating them and working with the data. But we’ve not have the ability to launch them before. This closes out the supply chain.”
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#2 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Nov 08, 2022 10:30 pm

A bit of history...



VulcanandFrenchRocket.JPG
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#3 Post by CharlieOneSix » Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:18 pm

Cosmic Girl was airborne from Newquay at 2202 for it's launch of a rocket with nine satellites. On FR24 the aircraft is passing north west of the Scillies at this time......
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#4 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:29 pm

Expected launch from Mission Control - 2308Z

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#5 Post by llondel » Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:26 pm

It appears to be on its way.

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#6 Post by CharlieOneSix » Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:58 pm

Oh Dear....From Virgin Orbit Control...
"We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information."
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#7 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:17 am

Virgin Orbit Control appears to be completely misnamed - they don't have control, it's not in orbit, and it's eff-ed ;)))

Back to the old drawing board...

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#8 Post by llondel » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:22 am

Satellites all destined for geostationary orbit.

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#9 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:33 am

No.
LEO.
The rocket was no way capable of geostationary orbit.

PP

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#10 Post by llondel » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:13 am

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:33 am
No.
LEO.
The rocket was no way capable of geostationary orbit.
Give the in-flight anomaly, I think it's in geostationary orbit now, some distance under the Atlantic.

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#11 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:24 am

I got it first time, llondel. :))

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#12 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:06 am

Llondel: Copy

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket suffers failure on first launch attempt from the UK
Stock took a major hit.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/business ... index.html

Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747 jet — dubbed “Cosmic Girl” — took off Monday from Newquay in England’s Cornwall county, 245 miles west of London, in a first launch for the country from UK soil. But nearly two hours after the plane left the ground and the rocket fired its engines to swoop toward space, Virgin Orbit revealed the launch was a failure.

“It appears that LauncherOne has suffered an anomaly which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission,” said Christopher Relf, director of systems engineering and verification for Virgin Orbit, in a Virgin Orbit live stream covering the launch. LauncherOne is the name of the air-launched rocket that hitched a ride beneath the wing of the Cosmic Girl aircraft.

No people, only satellites, were on board the rocket, which initially appeared to launch from the 747 jet without issue. Reif earlier confirmed that the rocket’s second stage was coasting through orbit, preparing to ignite its engine for a second burn. But he later revealed that it did not go as intended.

“We are looking at the information and data that we’ve gotten,” he added. “And we will be back with you in a moment with more.”

A follow-up tweet from Virgin Orbit echoed Relf’s comments, reading, “We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information.”

Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl aircraft and crew did return safely to the ground after Monday’s launch, the company confirmed on its live stream.

The company’s stock, which was already down nearly 9% during trading hours Monday, shed another 28% after hours. As of 8 p.m. ET, it was priced at just $1.40 per share.

Monday’s event was aiming to mark the first successful launch from the UK, though, technically, the rocket is designed to launch while Cosmic Girl is in flight.

The modified Boeing 747 flew to about 35,000 feet (10.7 kilometers) before releasing the rocket strapped under its wing.

Virgin Orbit expected LauncherOne to travel to between 310 and 745 miles (499 and 1199 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface and then release nine satellites into Earth’s low orbit.

It was not immediately clear what caused the rocket’s failure.

The launch was aiming to be the first for Virgin Orbit — a subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group — of commercial satellites from Western Europe, and the first launch for Virgin Orbit outside the United States.

Since January 2021, the US-based company has conducted four successful launches from the Mojave desert in California. The company has also experienced one previous failure. Virgin Orbit’s first launch attempt out of California in May 2020 failed because of an engine issue.

Ahead of the flight, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart had described the UK mission as a “historic endeavor.”

“This launch represents the opening of a new era in the British space industry and new partnerships across industry, government, and allies,” he said in a statement released Friday.

The satellites on board Monday were owned by seven customers, including private companies and government agencies. Among other things, the satellites were expected to be used for preventing illegal trafficking, smuggling and terrorism, the company said in Friday’s news release, as well as for reducing the environmental impact of production.

The mission, named “Start Me Up” after the Rolling Stones’ 1981 song, was a joint venture between Virgin Orbit, the UK Space Agency, Cornwall’s local government and the UK’s Royal Air Force.

‘A new era’
The launch was expected to mark a key milestone in the United Kingdom’s growing commercial satellite sector.

The country has been working on commercial spaceports for several years in a bid to capture a bigger share of the rapidly growing global space market, which Morgan Stanley estimates could be worth over $1 trillion by 2040.

The country’s £16.5 billion ($20 billion) space industry directly supported about 47,000 jobs between 2019 and 2020, according to the latest available government figures.

Ian Annett, the UK Space Agency’s deputy chief executive, said Friday that the launch signaled a “new era” for the UK’s space industry, “putting [it] firmly on the map as Europe’s leading destination for commercial small satellite launch.”

“The development of new orbital launch capabilities is already generating growth, catalyzing investment and creating jobs in Cornwall and other communities across the United Kingdom,” he added.

The small satellite launch industry is a burgeoning business around the world, but particularly in the United States. Virgin Orbit was one of the first in a long list of start-ups attempting to create small rockets that can deliver lightweight satellites to orbit quickly and cheaply — a growing business model that has dozens of global competitors. But the industry is also known to be fickle. Other small-rocket start-ups have also suffered failures in recent months and years, including US-based companies such as Firefly and Astra.

PP

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#13 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:40 am

Sad for the team. Is there a predicted re-entry time, if it hasn't already?

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#14 Post by barkingmad » Tue Jan 10, 2023 10:54 am

Quote from one news source;

"The plane took off horizontally from the new facility at Cornwall Airport in Newquay while carrying the rocket under a wing."

Obviously the -400 was a dramatic improvement on the old "Classics" if it was capable of any other type of departure... :-?

IIRC correctly there was no reference to a VTO capability in any of that class of aircraft but then it was a long time ago and I'm 10 years out of the industry. =))

Edited toi add:- - - "Once the Boeing 747 reached the drop site, the pilots flew her in a looping “racetrack” pattern ahead of the rocket launch".

I trust they carried out the HASELL checks before commencing aerobatics? :-o

One has to presume if the 2nd stage failed to function, then it's likely to be "in geostationary orbit now, some distance under the Atlantic".

Unless the defective stage went rogue and pushed it above a typical orbit in which case there's a lot of stray hardware on a random trajectory threatening manned and robotic craft?

I'll put my money on Atlantic seabed multiple locations.

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#15 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Jan 10, 2023 11:29 am

Virgin Orbit launch history to date:
  • On May 25, 2020, LauncherOne's first launch failed to reach orbit.
  • On January 17, 2021, LauncherOne became the first Virgin Orbit vehicle to reach orbit, successfully deploying 10 CubeSats into Low Earth Orbit for NASA on its final demonstration mission.[2] LauncherOne was deployed from the left (port) wing of a retrofitted Boeing 747, 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean.[11] The rocket was dedicated to the memory of Eve Branson, mother of Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, who died from COVID-19 on the 8th of January 2021.
  • On June 30, 2021, LauncherOne successfully delivered its first commercial payload to space.
  • On January 13, 2022, LauncherOne successfully delivered seven cubesats for three customers into orbit
  • In the early hours of 10th January 2023, the company confirmed that their first UK launched rocket had experienced an 'anomaly' and had failed to reach its planned orbit. If successful, it would have been the first orbital satellite launch from the UK.
- From Wiki.

I read some rubbish in the press declaring this effort a partial success and crowing that no European state has yet launched a satellite from the continent and I was apt to think of Arianespace's very successful heavy lift equatorial launch history to date culminating in the hugely impressive deep space insertion of the James Webb telescope to the second Lagrange point, and was somewhat embarrassed by such nationalistic nonsense in the face of a very public failure here in the UK.

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Sp ... s_launches

By comparison, let us also not forget that New Zealand (for example) now have a very successful CubeSat launch history with Rocket Lab.

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#16 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:48 pm

I'm all for erasing Boris from history, and delighted the government seems so as well, but PLEASE don't leave bits of him in the picture =))


_128250206_72b9a942-8e1b-4364-a7a0-b6a8368d1c9d.jpg
)

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#17 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:09 pm

Boac wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:48 pm
I'm all for erasing Boris from history, and delighted the government seems so as well, but PLEASE don't leave bits of him in the picture =))



_128250206_72b9a942-8e1b-4364-a7a0-b6a8368d1c9d.jpg)
I know that rockets are often used as metaphorical phallic symbols, but Johnson was a far bigger knob than the two in the picture i.e. Shapps and the unfortunate rocket! =))
Some Twitter users poked fun at the gaffe, with one asking: “Can he [Mr Johnson] be erased from history as well?” Another took aim at the editing skills on the photo, which appeared to have left behind part of Mr Johnson’s elbow.

“Grant has left part of Johnson’s elbow. Messy,” they said. Another added: “I’m all in favour of erasing Boris Johnson.”
Shapps clearly doesn't know his arse from Johnson's elbow!
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#18 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:21 pm

rockets are often used as metaphorical phallic symbols
One hopes one speaks for oneself and is not busy polishing one's. :))

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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#19 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:25 pm

I am afraid to say that I suspect the Cornwall "spaceport" (more airport) will become a huge white elephant, used only occasionally by the Bearded Wonder's company to attempt to burnish the Virgin brand's increasingly tarnished image as a viable space launch company. Britain will have to become a reputable designer of medium to heavy lift space vehicles (which it was once) before she can be taken seriously in a crowded and competent launch market.


@Boac - "One hopes one speaks for oneself and is not busy polishing one's."

=))
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Re: Flight from Cornish Space Port sometime soon?

#20 Post by TheGreenAnger » Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:41 pm

TheGreenAnger wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:25 pm
I am afraid to say that I suspect the Cornwall spaceport will become a huge white elephant, used only occasionally by the Bearded Wonder's company to attempt to burnish the Virgin brand's increasingly tarnished image as a viable space launch company. Britain will have to become a reputable designer of medium to heavy lift space vehicles (which it was once) before she can be taken seriously in a crowded and competent launch market.


@Boac - "One hopes one speaks for oneself and is not busy polishing one's."

=))
Virgin Orbit Stock Plunges as UK Launch Fails

Virgin Orbit’s (NAS: VORB) much hyped “Start Me Up” launch from the United Kingdom failed on Monday, sending nine satellites plunging to their doom and the company’s stock price sinking to its lowest point ever. The failure raised more questions about the financial viability of Richard Branson’s cash-strapped company.

Virgin Orbit initially tweeted that its air-launched LauncherOne booster had succeeded in placing the satellites into orbit. It later tweeted that the mission had failed after the rocket suffered an unidentified anomaly. The company said it would provide more information at a later time.

LauncherOne’s record fell to four successes and two failures. The four successes came in 2021 and 2022 after LauncherOne failed on its maiden flight on May 25, 2020.

The failure came two months after Virgin Orbit said in a public filing that its management had “substantial doubt” about the company’s survival due to dwindling cash to fund its operations.

LauncherOne was dropped over the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast of Ireland by the modified Boeing 747 Cosmic Girl. The airliner took off from Cornwall Newquay Airport, which has been designated Spaceport Cornwall.

The rocket carried nine satellites from the United Kingdom, United States, Oman and Poland. The AMAN Earth observation spacecraft was to have been Oman’s first satellite.

...

The failure comes two months after Branson’s company issued the following warning in its third quarter report: (Emphasis mine)

“We have not generated positive cash flows from operations or sufficient revenues to provide sufficient cash flows to enable us to finance our operations internally, and may not be able to raise sufficient capital to do so. As a result of the Company’s assessment of going concern considerations, management has determined that the liquidity condition raises substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.“

Virgin Orbit’s cash reserves dwindled from $194.2 million at the end of 2021 to $71.2 million at the end of the third quarter on Sept. 30. The amount included a convertible debenture loan from Yorkville Advisors that added $50 million to the balance sheet last June. Yorkville converted the loan into shares of Virgin Orbit.

Third quarter revenue was $30.9 million and the net loss was $43.6 million. The company’s net loss was $139.5 million for the first nine months of 2022.

Branson’s Virgin Group injected $25 million into Virgin Orbit on Nov. 4, which was three days before the company reported its third quarter losses.

On Nov. 23, Virgin Orbit announced it has abandoned plans to sell additional public shares “due to current market conditions.”
https://parabolicarc.com/2023/01/09/vir ... nch-fails/
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