"Virgin Orbit built a fantastic production facility with the very best equipment. We're fortunate to have nearly completed the acquisition of this facility and equipment to help advance Neutron's future production and reduce the overall cost of the program significantly."
Neutron is Rocketlab's future reusable Soyuz-class mid-size rocket, smaller than Falcon 9 but much bigger than Rocketlab's current Electron.
YazataMay 24, 2023 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: May 24, 2023 04:58 PM by Yazata.)
Virgin Orbit had originally hoped to sell the entire company intact, to a new buyer who would keep it operating. But sadly, they were unable to find a buyer willing to buy the whole thing. So they were forced to sell the company piece by piece.
In addition to Rocket Lab acquiring Virgin Orbit's factory in Long Beach, Stratolaunch has purchased Cosmic Girl, VO's Boeing 747 launcher plane. And Vast Space has purchased VO's aircraft hanger and rocket test stands at Mohave Air and Space Port.
All this is to be finalized in a California bankruptcy court this morning.