Business Standard

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit sends satellites into space

- JOEY ROULETTE 18 January

Billionair­e Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reached space for the first time on Sunday with a successful test of its airlaunche­d rocket, delivering ten NASA satellites to orbit and achieving a key milestone after aborting the rocket’s first test launch last year.

The Long Beach, California-based company’s Launcheron­e rocket was dropped mid-air from the underside of a modified Boeing

747 nicknamed Cosmic Girl some 35,000 feet over the Pacific at 11:39 a.m.

PT before lighting its Newtonthre­e engine to boost itself out of Earth’s atmosphere, demonstrat­ing its first successful trek to space.

“According to telemetry, Launcheron­e has reached orbit!” the company announced on Twitter during the test mission, dubbed Launch Demo 2. “In both a literal and figurative sense, this is miles beyond how far we reached in our first Launch Demo.

“Roughly two hours after its Cosmic Girl carrier craft took off from the Mojave Air and

Space Port in southern California, the rocket, a 70-foot launcher tailored for carrying small satellites to space, successful­ly placed 10 tiny satellites in orbit for NASA, the company said on Twitter.

The rocket, a 70-foot launcher tailored for carrying small satellites to space, aimed to place 10 tiny satellites in orbit for NASA roughly two hours into the mission, though Virgin Orbit had not confirmed whether they were deployed as planned.

The successful test and clean payload deployment was a needed double-win for Virgin Orbit, which last year failed its attempt to reach space when Launcheron­e’s main engine shut down prematurel­y moments after releasing from its carrier aircraft.

Sunday’s test also thrusts Virgin Orbit into an increasing­ly competitiv­e commercial space race, offering a unique “air-launch” method of sending satellites to orbit alongside rivals such as Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, which have designed small-launch systems to inject smaller satellites into orbit and meet growing demand.

The Launcheron­e rocket was dropped mid-air from the underside of a modified Boeing 747 nicknamed Cosmic Girl some 35,000 feet over the Pacific

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