{"id":7318,"date":"2026-02-28T09:49:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7318"},"modified":"2026-02-28T09:49:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:49:31","slug":"virgin-boeing-747-to-launch-rocket-into-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7318","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Boeing 747 to launch rocket into space"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n CNN<\/span>
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\n At the far southwestern tip of England, dangling into the Atlantic, the remote region of Cornwall rarely feels like the center of the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n But recently locals have been feeling tantalizingly close as they\u2019ve watched a very special plane fly low overhead, taking off from the runway at little Newquay Airport \u2013 the 29th biggest airport in the UK \u2013 and circling the skies above the coast before touching back down.\n <\/p>\n

\n This isn\u2019t just any plane. Nor is it a normal Boeing 747, as it appears from the ground. In fact, it\u2019s the \u201cQueen of the Skies\u201d repurposed for the space race, making trial flights before it takes part in the United Kingdom\u2019s first orbital space launch next month. And it\u2019ll be taking off from Spaceport Cornwall, which shares the airport\u2019s 1.7-mile regular runway.\n <\/p>\n

\n Marc Andrew, from nearby Newquay, traveled to the spaceport after work to see the aircraft land this week.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was amazing to watch, and will be a nice bit of history to tell my little boy when he\u2019s older,\u201d he told CNN. He is now preparing to return for the November launch.\n <\/p>\n

\n Cosmic Girl, as the plane has been named, is the vessel for Virgin Orbit\u2019s bid to launch seven satellites into space.\n <\/p>\n

\n A former passenger jumbo jet in service with Virgin Atlantic until 2015, it has been modified to carry LauncherOne, a California-made rocket which will go into the Earth\u2019s orbit.\n <\/p>\n

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\n Next month, Cosmic Girl will take off from Newquay\u2019s clifftop runway with LauncherOne under its wing \u2013 and once the 747 hits 34,000 feet, it\u2019ll release the rocket.\n <\/p>\n

\n Inside will be seven payloads, or satellites, which will start circling the planet in low Earth orbit.\n <\/p>\n

\n A trial last year<\/a> saw the rocket \u2013 released from under the 747\u2019s left wing \u2013 traveling at up to 17,000 miles an hour as it zoomed into space.\n <\/p>\n

\n Using a 747 for a horizontal launch enables a \u201cbroader range of orbits than would be possible from a traditional ground-launched system,\u201d Virgin Orbit wrote in a statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n The event will be the first orbital space launch for the UK and the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, according to the company. It\u2019ll also be Europe\u2019s first satellite launch, according to Ian Annett, deputy CEO at the UK Space Agency.\n <\/p>\n

\n LauncherOne completed its first full launch rehearsal in Long Beach, California, on October 2, before being flown to the UK last Friday to meet Cosmic Girl, which arrived in Cornwall on October 11.\n <\/p>\n

\n Cosmic Girl completed a nearly three-hour test flight around Cornwall and Southwest England on October 14, with Cornwall locals noting it flying low over their gardens.\n <\/p>\n

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\n \"Rocket<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n Virgin Orbit\u2019s chief pilot, Matthew Stannard, who will fly the 747 for the launch, said: \u201cIt feels amazing to bring Cosmic Girl home to the UK We are weeks away now from the first UK launch at Spaceport Cornwall so it\u2019s all very real.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, said: \u201cSeeing the infrastructure in place makes our launch ambitions a reality.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Hoping to see more Cosmic Girls? Virgin Orbit is planning to bring horizontal launches to Australia, Brazil, Japan, Poland and the Republic of Korea.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 At the far southwestern tip of England, dangling into the Atlantic, the remote region of Cornwall rarely feels like the center of the world.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}