California-based space travel and launch company Virgin Orbit’s first launch attempt from the UK—dubbed Start Me Up—suffered an anomaly that prevented its air-launched rocket, Launcher One, from reaching orbit and successfully completing its mission.

The Launcher One completed a successful horizontal launch strapped to the modified 747 (Cosmic Girl) from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay and continued to coast through orbit before encountering a problem with its second-stage ignition.

The rocket was carrying seven payloads onboard (Prometheus-2, AMAN, CIRCE, DOVER, ForgeStar-0, IOD-3, and STORK-6). Following the failure, the company’s stock, which was already down 9% during trading on Monday (9th January), dipped 28% further and was priced at USD 1.40 per share as of 8 pm ET.

Analyst QuickTake: The “Start Me Up” mission is a joint venture between Virgin Orbit, the UK Space Agency, Cornwall’s local government, and the UK’s Royal Air Force and was the first launch for Virgin Orbit outside the US. Virgin Orbit originally targeted to launch the mission in November 2022 but was pushed back due to the delays in gaining necessary regulatory approvals which the company received in December 2022 .