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+--- Thread: Article How Virgin Orbit went bankrupt (dying fashions in commercial space industry) (/thread-13986.html)
How Virgin Orbit went bankrupt (dying fashions in commercial space industry) - C C - Apr 22, 2023
https://gizmodo.com/how-virgin-orbit-went-bankrupt-1850361416
EXCERPTS: . . . Two things stood between Virgin and success: One was the size of their rocket, and the second was its its cost.
Virgin’s LauncherOne could only put a few hundred kilograms of cargo into orbit. That meant it could only target the smallest satellites or individual replacement spacecraft for large satellite networks. But at a cost of $12 million or more per launch, that left the company far pricier than less flexible, but more efficient, SpaceX ride share launches. Rocket Lab’s Electron carries similarly sized payloads to orbit, but for $7 million a launch—just over half Virgin’s price.
Virgin’s costs were driven by the more than $1 billion spent developing the rocket and launch system. That’s a huge investment, even for rocket-making: SpaceX’s much larger Falcon 9 cost about $400 million to get off the ground, while Rocket Lab had raised about $260 million when it got the Electron flying regularly. Maybe—maybe!—a regular launch cadence could have amortized the costs of the developing the vehicle and its infrastructure, but Virgin Orbit never reached its goal of a frequent and consistent launch cadence.
[...] As with any failed effort, it’s possible that better execution and more creative solutions could have saved Virgin, but it’s not clear whether the initial design decisions left the company’s engineers enough margin for success.
The impact of Virgin’s bankruptcy will reach across the space sector: The company owes between $100 and $500 million to a variety of creditors [...] Virgin also owes the US Space Force $6.8 million (presumably refundable launch deposits) and software provider Arqit nearly $10 million... (MORE - missing details)