WASHINGTON • Virgin Orbit, billionaire Richard Branson's company, has reached space for the first time with a successful test of its air-launched rocket, delivering 10 Nasa satellites to orbit and achieving a key milestone after aborting the rocket's first test launch last year.
The California-based company's LauncherOne rocket was dropped mid-air from the underside of a modified Boeing 747 nicknamed Cosmic Girl some 10.7km over the Pacific on Sunday before lighting its NewtonThree engine to boost itself out of Earth's atmosphere, demonstrating its first successful trek to space.
"According to telemetry, LauncherOne has reached orbit!" the company tweeted during the test, dubbed Launch Demo 2. "In both a literal and figurative sense, this is miles beyond how far we reached in our first Launch Demo."
Roughly two hours after Cosmic Girl took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in southern California, the rocket, a 21m launcher tailored for carrying small satellites to space, successfully placed 10 tiny satellites in orbit for the US space agency.
The successful test and clean payload deployment made for a needed double-win for Virgin Orbit, which failed in its attempt last year to reach space when LauncherOne's main engine shut down prematurely moments after releasing from its carrier aircraft.
Sunday's shortened mission generated key test data for the company, it said.
The test also thrusts Virgin Orbit into an increasingly competitive commercial space race, offering an "air-launch" method of sending satellites to orbit alongside rivals such as Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, which have designed small-launch systems to inject smaller satellites into orbit and meet growing demand.
Virgin Orbit executives say high-altitude launches allow satellites to be placed in their intended orbit more efficiently and also minimise weather-related cancellations compared with more traditional rockets launched vertically from a ground pad.
Virgin Orbit's government services subsidiary VOX Space is selling launches using the system to the United States military, with a first mission slated for October under a US$35 million (S$47 million) US Space Force contract for three missions.
REUTERS
