Cosmic Girl returned successfully to the landing strip in Newquay. The rocket however failed to reach orbit. Virgin Orbit said it ignited its engines, and quickly went hypersonic, successfully reaching space. It continued through a successful stage separation and ignition, but an anomaly meant it failed to reach orbit.

Technically, the aircraft Cosmic Girl (a modified Boeing 747-400) did not fail; it performed its job perfectly. The failure occurred with the LauncherOne rocket it was carrying. During the historic "Start Me Up" mission from Spaceport Cornwall on January 9, 2023, Cosmic Girl successfully took off and released the rocket at the correct altitude. However, after the rocket's first stage fell away, the second-stage engine suffered an anomaly. Specifically, a fuel filter in the engine was dislodged, causing the engine to overheat and fail prematurely before it could reach orbit. This resulted in the loss of all nine satellites on board. The failure was a massive blow to Virgin Orbit, eventually leading to the company's bankruptcy later that year. While Cosmic Girl safely returned to the runway and continues to be a marvel of "air-launch" engineering, the mission remains a cautionary tale about the razor-thin margins of error in rocket propulsion and second-stage ignition systems.