Jan. 9, 2023, 10:16 p.m. - Jan. 10, 2023, 12:16 a.m.
7 payloads for government and private customers. This mission is the first launch from the United Kingdom.
LauncherOne is a two stage orbital launch vehicle developed by Virgin Orbit since 2007. It is an air launch to orbit rocket, designed to launch "smallsat" payloads of 300 kilograms (660 lb) into a Sun-synchronous orbit, following air launch from a carrier aircraft at high altitude.
Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which plans to provide launch services for small satellites. The company was formed in 2017 to develop the air-launched LauncherOne rocket, launched from Cosmic Girl, which had previously been a project of Virgin Galactic. Based in Long Beach, California, Virgin Orbit has more than 300 employees led by president Dan Hart, a former vice president of government satellite systems at Boeing. Virgin Orbit focuses on small satellite launch, which is one of three capabilities being focused on by Virgin Galactic. These capabilities are: human spaceflight operations, small satellite launch, and advanced aerospace design, manufacturing, and test
INFO WIKISpaceport Cornwall, which provided the runway for Virgin Orbit’s failed launch from the U.K. in January, opened a new operations facility April 27 to attract more businesses in the wake of its flagship customer’s bankruptcy.
Virgin Orbit says it is moving ahead with plans to return its LauncherOne rocket to flight later this year even though there is no certainty the company will emerge from bankruptcy.
irgin Orbit provided additional details about the likely cause of its LauncherOne failure last month but didn’t estimate when the vehicle will be ready to return to flight.
Virgin Orbit says its first LauncherOne mission from the United Kingdom failed to reach orbit Jan. 9 when an anomaly caused a premature shutdown of the rocket’s upper stage.
An investigation has been launched after an attempt to make space history by sending satellites into orbit from British soil for the first time ended in failure Monday night due to an anomaly in the second stage of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherO…
Soyuz MS-24 carried two cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in K…
Third flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying a payload for the US Department of Defense.
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Classified space situational awareness (SSA) payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
3 Chinese reconnaissance satellites of unknown purposes, officially reported as for "Electromagnetic environment probing" purposes.
A batch of 22 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Third commercial Virgin Galactic mission.
X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), formerly the X-Ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (XARM), is a replacement for the Hitomi satellite that …
The Yaogan 33-03 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purpose.
4 small satellites for LEO Internet of Things (IoT) communication purposes.