Orbital rocket from UK suffers 'anomaly'

London - LauncherOne, the rocket blasted into space to deploy its satellites at midnight on Monday, has suffered an "anomaly," said Virgin Orbit, a company providing launch services for small satellites.

The rocket launch mission Start Me Up lifted off Monday evening. Cosmic Girl, a former Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747, took off at 2201 GMT from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay, England, with the Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket under its wing.

The rocket was bound for Earth's lower orbit on its mission to deploy nine satellites from seven customers. It dropped from the aircraft over the Atlantic and was expected to take around 45 minutes to get into orbit.

If it succeeded, it would mark the first orbital mission to begin from Britain or from anywhere in Western Europe.

However, "we appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information," tweeted the American company.

Cosmic Girl touched down on the southwest coast of England less than two hours after its departure. Despite news of the rocket running into problems, the aircraft was greeted with applause by the hundreds of people watching at the spaceport.

Start Me Up, named in honour of the Rolling Stones' 1981 hit, is a collaborative effort by the UK Space Agency, Cornwall Council, the Royal Air Force and Virgin Orbit.