The first testaffyring of a Virgin Orbit-rocket from a plane at about 10,000 meters, is on Monday failed.
It informs the company, which is owned by the british musician Richard Branson, according to AFP news agency.
the Rocket should have gone into Earth orbit with the goal of being able to send satellites away – but the first firing was abandoned after a short time.
– the Mission was interrupted briefly touched in flight. Cosmic Girl and our crew on the plane are safe and on the way back to the base, the scribe Virgin Orbit on Twitter.
Cosmic Girl is the name of the converted Boeing 747, carrying the approximately 21-meter-long rocket, which completely after the plan was released under the wing from jumbojetten.
But even if raketmotoren put in the time seconds after firing, was the control room need to discontinue the flight due to an ‘irregularity’, writes the BBC.
the Goal of the virgin’s raketaffyringer is to share in the growing market for small satellites.
the Firings from aircraft could potentially be more flexible and cheaper than the live firings from the ground, when you just need a runway and not a full launch.
It is not yet clear exactly what went wrong during the firing. But the Bransons company had warned in advance of the first fire, the chances of success were fifty-fifty.
another musician with big rumambitioner came, however, with comforting words.
– So sorry to hear about it. Circuit is difficult. It took us four attempts with the Falcon 1, writes Elon Musk, the owner of the rumfartsvirksomheden SpaceX.
Musk has big dreams of private space flight, and Wednesday is SpaceX for a much publicised launch of the two american astronauts to The International Space station (ISS).
Virgin-the plane took off Monday from a base in the Mojave desert in California, and the failure of the firing took place over the Pacific ocean.
Within the test, the company had announced that the mission was ’the most technically complex, as we have tried to achieve so far’, writes AFP.
– The first few seconds after the release of the rocket is where it all needs to hang together, it sounded.
After the test, writes the company on Twitter, that it is very satisfied with the collected data, even if the firing had to be interrupted.
The launching of rockets from aircraft is not a new concept. The rocket Pegasus, which is developed by the Northrop Grumman group, has existed since the 1990s. But Virgin Orbit wants to make a cheaper version.
Branson also has a second rumfartsselskab, Virgin Galactic, which focuses on the rumfartsturisme.