Flight Radar: This is the route Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl took before launching failed rocket

  • Watch the flight path of Cosmic Girl as it takes off and lands in Newquay

Data collected by a flight tracking service shows the path taken by Virgin Orbit's jet Cosmic Girl as it embarked on its mission to launch satellites into space.

The flight path, which went live shortly before 10pm last night (9 January), shows the modified 747 take off from Cornwall.

Ultimately, the rocket attached to the jet suffered a technical issue and could not go into orbit.

Over the course of the Cosmic Girl's flight the plane reached speeds of 549 knots, equivalent to more than 1,000 km/hr.

The jet circles in the sky in order to deploy the rocket Credit: FlightRadar24

The tracker shows the moment the jet circles in the sky while the rocket is detached from the body of the plane. It is at this point, over the Atlantic Ocean, that its speed decreases to below 300 knots.

The LauncherOne rocket successfully detached, but after suffering an 'anomaly' was unable to reach orbit. Engineers are investigating what went wrong and caused the fault.

Virgin Orbit's plane flew back to Newquay, with both the crew and aircraft returning to Spaceport Cornwall safely.

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