Start Me Up: Virgin Orbit rocket takes flight from Cornwall

Virgin Orbit has filed for bankruptcy protection in the States after failing to get the funding needed to recover from a January rocket failure. Its bid for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection comes less than a week after the California-based satellite launch company announced it was laying off 85 percent of its staff and stopping operations for the foreseeable future.

Virgin Orbit, which is three-quarters owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, lodged the filing in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware seeking a sale of its assets.

Sky News reports that in the court it listed assets and liability between $100m (£80m) and $500m (£403m).

The company aborted the UK’s first satellite launch from Cornwall in January.

Last month Virgin Orbit announced the preliminary findings of its investigation into the failure of the “Start Me Up” mission which was launched from Spaceport Cornwall on January 9 this year.

It said that LauncherOne’s failure to reach the target orbit was due to a fault in the fuel line of the rocket’s second stage.

The firm said it was this that caused the craft to undergo a premature shutdown, ultimately burning up — along with its payload of commercial and Government satellites — during atmospheric re-entry after falling back from Space.

The investigation began within hours of the “anomaly” which struck LauncherOne and was led by aerospan veteran Jim Sponnick and Virgin Orbit’s chief engineer, Chad Foerster.

The team was given access to extensive telemetry data on the launch that was collected by ground stations located across the UK, Ireland and Spain.

They also studied data recorded by “Cosmic Girl” — the converted Boeing 747 airliner which served as the flying launch platform for the air-deployed rocket.

Staff from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the US Federal Aviation Administration, with assistance by personnel from the Department of Defense, National Transportation Safety Board, and the National Reconnaissance Office, provided oversight of the investigation.

The investigation concluded that pre-flight preparations, Cosmic Girl’s take-off and flight and the release of LauncherOne from under the airliner’s wing were all executed successfully.

Similarly, both the first stage ignition, flight and separation of LauncherOne as well as the rocket’s second stage ignition and fairing separation went ahead as was planned.

But after the second stage first burn, analysts have determined that a filter within the fuel feedline became dislodged from its normal position.

This, Virgin Orbit explained, caused the fuel pump located downstream of the filter to underperform — causing the Newton 4 engine to become starved of fuel.

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