Cosmic Girl has arrived at her "racetrack" off San Diego. Tracking stations around the world are preparing to track the VO satellites, should the launch succeed.
Terminal count autosequence initiated. The computers are now conducting the countdown. Less than 15 min from launch.
Flightradar 24 shows that Cosmic Girl has been joined by a chase plane.
Cosmic Girl made one complete circle of the racetrack, then pulled up sharply on its second pass and released the rocket.
The rocket ignited well.
They got a full duration burn.
Successful stage separation.
Successful stage two ignition.
Rocket is in space. Fairing jettison.
SECO, second stage engine cutoff.
Tracking stations verify that the second stage is indeed in orbit.
Good day for Virgin Orbit!
Rocket is coasting now in anticipation of a another second stage burn to circularize the orbit. Then the payloads will be released.
Cosmic Girl and her humans are safely back on the ground at Mojave.
And the circularization burn was successful and the payloads have been deployed into orbits within specified tolerances.
Apart from some minor glitches that didn't really impact the mission (rumors about a problem with roll-control) the day was a rousing success for Virgin Orbit!
YazataJun 30, 2021 02:48 PM (This post was last modified: Jun 30, 2021 04:42 PM by Yazata.)
Virgin Orbit is preparing to launch a satellite as we speak. Their launcher plane Cosmic Girl is preparing to depart Mojave Airport in southern California.
Payload is six tiny cubesats. Three are from the US DOD, part of an Agile Launch experiment to assess the ability of companies like Virgin Orbit to launch small satellite payloads into particular orbits on very short notice. One is a similar cubesat from the Dutch Air Force. This is Holland's first military satellite ever and again seems designed to test the ability of private launch companies to put up their satellites when needed. And two cubseats are from a private company from Poland called SatRevolution. These are prototype earth-observation payloads for agricultural purposes.
Edit - Cosmic Girl has departed Mojave and has crossed the California coast near Santa Barbara outbound.
Edit-2 - 15 minutes from launch - Cosmic Girl is west of San nicholas island turning into her racetrack pattern. Rocket engine being chilled-in and tanks at initial pressure.
Edit-3 - Cosmic Girl on final run towards drop point - Rocket on internal power
Edit-4 - Good drop, good ignition, good first stage fire, crossed Karman line, good stage sep, good fairing sep, good second stage start. Cosmic Girl is on her way home to Mojave.
Virgin Orbit infographic that lays out their future plans
Short turn --
1. Developing a small third stage for their rockets allowing them to put small payloads into a wider variety of orbits and even loft very small payloads like 1-u cubesats as far away as the Moon.
2. Expanding the performance of their Launcher 1 rocket enabling it to put 500-600 kg in low earth orbit. It isn't clear from the infographic, but this might involve an improved rocket engine along with as many as four small solid boosters attached to the outside of the first stage.
Longer term:
3. Making the Launcher 1 first stage reusable
4. Developing a new Launcher 2 rocket that will ride on top of Cosmic Girl rather than under her wing, designed to triple Launcher 1's performance (suggesting 1500-1800 kg into LEO).
YazataMar 16, 2023 06:05 AM (This post was last modified: Mar 16, 2023 06:08 AM by Yazata.)
Michael Sheetz of cnbc is reporting that Virgin Orbit has been "put on pause" and its workers put on "unpaid furlough".
So it looks like it has run out of money. It's too bad because it has a rocket that has successfully made it to orbit more than once, though it had a fuel-filter problem on its last launch and still needs to demonstrate reliability. Its air-launched concept with Cosmic Girl is going to be hard to replicate.
I was hoping that their founder, deep pocketed billionaire Richard Branson, would bail them out.
YazataMar 31, 2023 12:58 AM (This post was last modified: Mar 31, 2023 01:07 AM by Yazata.)
Looks like Virgin Orbit is indeed history. They informed all their employees today that the company had been unable to secure financing, is "ceasing operations for the forseeable future" and that all but 100 employees are being laid off.
Very sad news. I fully expected some of the "new space" companies to go out of business, particularly in the very crowded small launcher category. But I never expected that VO would be the first to collapse. It had a viable rocket that had already achieved orbit, it had a deep-pockets billionaire backer and it had contracts to launch satellites. I would have thought it was one of the more likely successes.
Jan 17, 2021 08:07 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 18, 2021 01:43 AM by Yazata.)
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