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Virgin Orbit conducted a test flight on Sunday, January 17, US time, not only achieving its goal of reaching space and orbit, but also achieving its first commercial mission with a payload for NASA. , With great success. The launch has been successful in all respects, and the company is on its way to becoming a small payload launch provider for both commercial and defense customers.
Today’s sequence of events for #LaunchDemo2 went exactly to plan, from safe execution of our ground ops all the way through successful full duration burns on both engines. To say we’re thrilled would be a massive understatement, but 240 characters couldn’t do it justice anyway. pic.twitter.com/ZKpoi7hkGN
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) January 18, 2021
In the video, you can see the moment when the LauncherOne rocket is separated from Cosmic Girl. The Cosmic Girl is a modified version of the Boeing 747 airliner, which takes off from the runway of a normal aircraft, climbs to cruising altitude and launches a rocket, which then ignites the engine and flies into space. Virgin Orbit’s launch model is designed to reduce barriers to carrying small payloads into orbit compared to traditional vertical takeoff rockets, and this successful test flight proves that the model works. ing.
With its actual arrival in space and orbit, Virgin Orbit has joined a group of small but growing private sector launchers. This should be big news for the small satellite launch market, where demand is still much higher than supply. The company also offers a completely different service than existing space exploration companies like SpaceX. LauncherOne’s design could provide satellite operators with more on-demand, more responsive, and faster launch services.
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