Geomaticians

U.K.’S Highly Touted Space Launch Fails To Reach Orbit Due To An ‘Anomaly’

The rocket was set to make history, carrying satellites on what would be the first-ever orbital launch from the U.K. on Monday night. But Virgin Orbit says its LauncherOne rocket "experienced an anomaly" just before it could deliver its payload, and the craft was lost. Virgin Orbit says it's reviewing the flight data to determine exactly what went wrong. "The failure resulted in the loss of nine satellites," reports Space.com. "Those payloads are an in-orbit manufacturing experiment by the U.K. company Space Forge; several U.K. defense cubesats, including two for studying the ionosphere, the upper layer of Earth's atmosphere where space weather occurs; and an experimental global navigation satellite co-funded by the European Space Agency."