Virgin Orbit has been awarded licences to operate the UK’s first space launch. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s company demonstrated it has “taken all reasonable steps to ensure safety risks arising from launch activities are as low as reasonably practicable”.
Virgin Orbit is planning a launch from Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport Newquay in the coming weeks. The mission named Start Me Up in tribute to rock band The Rolling Stones will involve a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft and Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.
The 747 will take off horizontally from the new facility at Cornwall Airport Newquay while carrying the rocket, before releasing it at 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland. The plane will return to the spaceport, while the rocket will ignite its engine and take multiple small satellites into orbit with a variety of civil and defence applications.
