An orbital rocket carrying nine satellites has been blasted into space after a historic launch from UK soil.
LauncherOne, carrying nine satellites for deployment in Earth’s lower orbit, shot off towards the stars from around 35,000ft above the Atlantic, having been carried skyward by a converted jumbo jet dubbed Cosmic Girl.
The former Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 took off from Spaceport Cornwall, at the site of Newquay Airport, at just gone 10pm on Monday night, sparking wild cheers and applause from the 2,000 members of the public who were lucky enough to snag tickets.
Nestled under its left wing was the 21 metre-long LauncherOne, tasked with transporting the satellites – several of which were made in Britain – into space at speeds of up to 17,500mph.
It was released from the aircraft just over an hour after take-off from Newquay, shortly before 11.15pm, with the rocket’s path taking it to the other side of the world, ready to release the satellites another hour or so later.
Cosmic Girl, meanwhile, made its way back to England’s southwest coast and had landed back at the spaceport before midnight.
What kind of satellites are being deployed?
Unlike the large satellites taken into space by vertical rocket launches, like those carried out by NASA and SpaceX, Virgin Orbit – the operator of Monday’s Start Me Up mission – deals with far smaller hardware.
Only about the size of a cereal box, the newly-launched satellites will perform a range of tasks in space, such as maritime research and detecting illegal fishing and piracy, as well as national security.
They are also used for climate change observation.
Slowly but surely, Earth’s lower orbit is becoming much more crowded, as companies from Amazon to UK-based satellite company Iridium all holding a presence.
So too does Elon Musk’s satellite broadband company Starlink.