The AAIB was acting in its guize as the UK’s Space Accident Investigation Authority (SAIA) which is responsible for the investigation of spaceflight accidents in accordance with The Spaceflight Activities regulations.
It was on 9th January 2023, when Virgin Orbit attempted the first orbital launch from England's Spaceport at Newquay Airport in Cornwall. The plan was to use LauncherOne, a two-stage orbital launch rocket which was designed to be carried under the wing of a modified Boeing 747-400 named Cosmic Girl. Once the 747 flew to the release or launch zone, the LauncherOne would be released and head up to orbit and dispatch its satelites payload.
The rocket had been carried to the launch area and dropped from Cosmic Girl as planned, but a fault in the second stage engine caused it to shut down before the stage achieved orbit. The mision was a failure, although at the time, Virgin Orbit downplayed the event as a 'mishap'. it would prove to be that so much of a 'mishap' that it would cause the company to enter into bankruptcy.
The cause of the launch 'mishap' is likely to be that a fuel filter within the fuel feedline dislodged from its normal position from the beginning of the first burn of the second stage engine, the statement confirms, following an investigation by Virgin Orbit and others involved. It was a conclusion that was supported by ground testing that matched the observed flight data.
The dislodged fuel feedline caused the fuel pump downstream of the filter to operate at degraded efficiency, resulting in fuel flow to the Newton 4 engine being lower than expected. This, in turn, caused the engine to operate at a temperature significantly higher than expected. This in turn caused the second stage engine to shut down prematurely. The rocket then fell back to earth, landing within the approved flight corridor in the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Canary Islands.
