Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket suffers in-flight failure in Britain's first orbital flight

Virgin Orbit launched nine small satellites atop a rocket dropped from a 747 jumbo jet south of Ireland on Monday, but the booster suffered a failure during the climb to space and the payloads were lost, the company said.

The 747 "Cosmic Girl" jet took off from Cornwall Airport Newquay near Britain's southwest coast in what had been billed as the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom and western Europe.

The repurposed Virgin Atlantic passenger jet, with the 70-foot-long 57,000-pound LauncherOne rocket tucked under its left wing, took off just after 5 p.m. EST, cheered on by airport workers, area residents and government officials as it slowly climbed away to the west and disappeared from view over the Atlantic Ocean.