Cosmic Girl

The Cornish are going to space!

Cosmic Girl is a modified Boeing 747-400, which will take off from Newquay Airport this summer, in the UK's first ever space launch. Under its wing will be LauncherOne, a Virgin Orbit rocket, with a payload of small satellites, which are used for tracking shipping and other (undisclosed) things. LauncherOne will be released at 35,000 feet and fire its booster to zoom the satellites into orbit.

The fact that the operations team includes the Ministry of Defence, the Border Force and the National Crime Agency leads us to suspect that the satellites may be above our heads but not necessarily above board. Rumours that the People's Front of Cornwall are planning a second launch, PeFroCorn, to track LauncherOne have not been denied. As have suggestions that one of the satellites will be in a geostationary orbit above an asylum seeker processing centre in Rwanda. And another that one of the satellites will be targetting [did I mean tracking?] vulnerable people crossing the  English Channel in small boats.

Cynicism aside, we should perhaps celebrate Cornwall's entry to the twenty first century - skipping the twentieth, obviously - and watch the skies this summer. Perhaps.