The launch took place from Spaceport Cornwall aboard a customised 747 that served as the LauncherOne system’s carrier aircraft.
The plane, dubbed Cosmic Girl, took off on Monday night from Cornwall Airport with hundreds of members of the public watching and over 75,000 viewing a live stream of the event. To prepare Cosmic Girl for the launch, the interior of the main deck was gutted of all seats and overhead bins to reduce the weight.
The rocket was successfully released from the aircraft and its engines ignited, taking it into space at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour (around 18,000km/h).
But at some point after stage separation and ignition of the second stage, the system experienced “an anomaly”, ending the mission prematurely.
It is currently unknown if the rocket is still in space or fell back to Earth but operators said it would not land on populated ground.
LauncherOne is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed and flown by Virgin...