This past Sunday, Virgin Orbit, another subsidiary of billionaire Richard Branson, successfully launched its LaucherOne rocket from a Boeing 747.
In the company's second launch, but the first with a payload, about 10 satellites have been successfully deployed into space, fulfilling an agreement with NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP).
Logically, this was a milestone in the company's history. The first launch was in 2019, successfully carried out, but until then the Virgin Orbit had not launched any rockets with payload.
Virgin Orbit's new launch system uses a technique called an airdrop, in which a rocket is launched under the wing of a jet aircraft, rather than from a traditional launch pad on the ground.
In addition to improving the rocket's carrying capacity, this technique allows the LauncherOne system to be the most flexible and agile launch service in the world, flying on short notice and from a wide variety of locations to access any orbit.
The entire operation this Sunday (17) was carried out from a Boeing 747-400 named Cosmic Girl. This one took off from Mojave, in the United States, flying to the Pacific Ocean, where the launch took place.
After a smooth release of the aircraft, the two-stage rocket was fired and entered orbit. At the conclusion of the flight, the LauncherOne rocket deployed 10 CubeSats into the requested orbit, marking a major step forward for Virgin Orbit in its quest to break down the barriers preventing low-cost access to space.
You can check it all out in the video below:
https://twitter.com/Virgin_Orbit/status/1350960438444511232
This flight also marks a historic first: no other orbital-class, air-launched, liquid-fueled rocket has successfully reached space before today.
Virgin Orbit already has launches booked by customers ranging from the US Space Force and the UK Royal Air Force to commercial customers such as Swarm Technologies, Italy's SITAEL and Denmark's GomSpace.
