I was at Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit launch. It felt like a festival with its silent disco and food trucks, but the excitement plummeted when the launch failed — and Branson watched from his private island

Virgin Orbit launched a space mission from the UK on Monday, which ended in disappointment for many after the rocket suffered an "anomaly."

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I went to Spaceport Cornwall to see the launch, which was set to be the UK's first orbital mission from British soil.

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It was a cold and blustery night with sporadic bursts of rain and hail, but more than two thousand people still came along to watch Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl carry the LauncherOne rocket into the sky.

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There were several food trucks at the launch event, offering pizza, mac-n-cheese, coffee, and regional specialties such as Cornish pasties.

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Virgin Orbit also organized a massive marquee for a silent disco. Staff were handing out headphones on the door, and people inside danced to well-known pop songs.

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Ian Annett, deputy chief executive of the UK space agency, said in a speech the launch sold out faster than the Glastonbury festival, the nation's biggest music event.

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Spectators wore wristbands handed out on entry. Joanna and Amy, two students from Falmouth University in Cornwall, told me the launch event felt like a mini-festival.

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Despite the electric atmosphere, there was one prominent person missing: Richard Branson. His representative said Branson was unable to join the team in person but was cheering them on and "glued to the action."

Virgin Orbit

At the time of the launch, he was on Necker Island, a private tropical paradise owned by him in the British Virgin Islands. Branson's net worth is valued at $3.6 billion.

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The only appearance he made was a brief speech during Virgin Orbit's livestream of the launch.

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Although Cosmic Girl took off and successfully released the rocket over the Atlantic Ocean, Virgin Orbit announced at around 6:45 pm ET that LauncherOne had experienced an "anomaly" and failed to reach orbit to deploy the nine satellites onboard.

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As soon as the technical failure was announced, the buzz dropped and sounds of disappointment and lots of "oh nos" resonated from the crowd. Spectators slowly began to leave the launch.

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Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, told the press she was "devastated," while Matt Archer, commercial space director at the UK Space Agency, said he was "disappointed."

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Branson quote-tweeted Virgin Orbit's statement about the failed mission on Tuesday, thanking the team for working on the mission.

—Richard Branson (@richardbranson) January 10, 2023

 

In the meantime, Virgin Orbit and the UK space agency are investigating what caused LauncherOne to fail.

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