Sir Richard Branson’s rocket company Virgin Orbit has made the vast majority of its staff redundant and paused its operations.

The company is part of Sir Richard’s business empire, which includes Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Holidays and the space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

It develops rockets to carry small satellites into space, but in January it failed to complete its first ever satellite launch, from Newquay in Cornwall.

The company has since announced plans to lay off around 675 employees after failing to secure additional funding.

Sir Richard’s investment firm Virgin Investments has injected £8.8m into Virgin Orbit to fund redundancy pay and other costs related to the reduction of its workforce.