Oh dear. The failure of the first ever satellite mission launched from UK soil last night left a number of people with egg on their face – including George Freeman, the government’s boosterish science minister. The Tory MP was excited to witness the ‘historic mission’ firsthand in Newquay: so excited in fact that he trumpeted the mission’s success before it was guaranteed.
‘This genuinely is a historic moment for Britain,’ he told the Daily Telegraph, soon after a plane carrying the rocket took off ahead of its launch over the Atlantic. ‘We’ve won the space race in Europe.’ Er, sadly not. The rocket had ignited and appeared to be ascending correctly but barely two hours later, at midnight, Virgin Orbit said it appeared to have an ‘anomaly’ in the satellite launch. The satellites it was carrying could not be released and were lost, with Cosmic Girl, the 747 jet, returned safely to base.
In fairness to Freeman, he wasn’t the only minister who perhaps let excitement get the better of him. Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, was joking last night that he had offered Virgin Orbit his services as a pilot for the mission, extolling plans for seven future British spaceports and declaring that ‘tonight all eyes are on the United Kingdom.’
Here’s to winning the race next time eh chaps?
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