by An errant fuel filter apparently doomed Virgin Orbit’s historic launch from England last month.
The January 9 mission, called “Start Me Up”, was the first orbital attempt to lift off from British soil. But it didn’t go as planned.
Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl plane took off from Spaceport Cornwall and launched the 21-metre-long LauncherOne rocket on schedule. But LauncherOne encountered problems during a second-stage engine burnout, leading to the loss of the rocket and all nine satellites it was carrying.
Related: Virgin Orbit’s botched launch leaves opportunity open for UK as space ‘dark horse’
Last week, during a conference in Silicon Valley, Calif., Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said the company had found a probable proximate cause for the failure – a fuel filter in the second stage of the rocket that came out of the place during the flight.
That remains the top diagnosis, the company announced in an update on Tuesday. (opens in new tab) (February 14th).
“The data indicates that, since the start of the first burn of the second stage, a fuel filter within the fuel feed line has been dislodged from its normal position,” Virgin Orbit representatives wrote in the update.
“Additional data shows that the fuel pump that is downstream of the filter operated at a degraded efficiency level, resulting in the Newton 4 engine running out of fuel,” they added. “Performing in this anomalous manner resulted in the engine operating at a significantly higher temperature than rated.”
The unusually high temperatures caused several components to malfunction, which in turn led to the “early termination of thrust” in the second stage and the end of the mission.
While this isn’t the final word on the January 9th anomaly – the investigation continues – Virgin Orbit is taking steps to ensure a filter issue doesn’t show up on future flights.
The company is “modifying our next rocket with a more robust filter, and we’re looking to ensure that all credible contributors to mission failure are rooted out and addressed,” Hart said in Tuesday’s update. “With these modifications being incorporated into our factory floor, we will proceed cautiously towards the launch of our next rocket, which is in the process of being integrated and tested.”
The next mission will lift off from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, as will all five of Virgin Orbit’s orbital attempts prior to “Start Me Up”. The four most recent Mojave missions have been successful, putting a total of 33 satellites into orbit for a variety of customers. The company’s first takeoff, a test flight from Mojave in May 2020, was a failure.
The company plans to announce more information about the upcoming mission “in the coming weeks,” according to Tuesday’s update.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab).Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
