Copernical Team
Historic UK rocket mission set for liftoff
Final preparations were under way Monday for the first rocket launch from UK soil, catapulting it into the "exclusive" club of nine nations able to send crafts into Earth's orbit.
A repurposed Boeing 747 carrying the 70-foot (21-meter) rocket containing nine satellites will take off from a spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England, at 2216 GMT.
The rocket will detach from the aircraft at a height of 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland before later discharging the satellites.
The aircraft will then return to Spaceport Cornwall, a consortium that includes Virgin Orbit and the UK Space Agency, at Cornwall Airport Newquay.
The launch will be the first from UK soil. UK-produced satellites have previously had to be sent into orbit via foreign spaceports.
"Joining that really exclusive club of launch nations is so important because it gives us our own access to space... that we've never had before here in the UK," Spaceport Cornwall chief Melissa Thorpe told BBC television on Monday.
Over 2,000 people are expected to watch the launch named "Start Me Up" after the Rolling Stones song.
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