''Cosmic Girl'' is a

Boeing 747-400 The Boeing 747-400 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, an advanced variant of the initial Boeing 747. The "Advanced Series 300" was announced at the September 1984 Farnborough Airshow, targeting ...

aircraft. A former passenger airliner operated by

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and w ...

, it was purchased by

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company i ...

in 2015 to be used as the first stage

launch platform A transporter erector launcher (TEL) is a missile vehicle with an integrated tractor unit that can carry, elevate to firing position and launch one or more missiles. History Such vehicles exist for both surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-s ...

(or

mothership A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental airc ...

launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform (mobile launcher platform), or the entire ...

) for the

air launch Air launching is the practice of releasing a rocket, missile, parasite aircraft or other aircraft payload from a mother ship or launch aircraft. The payload craft or missile is often tucked under the wing of the larger mother ship and then "drop ...

stage of the

smallsat A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

orbital launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syste ...

, the

LauncherOne LauncherOne is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed and flown by Virgin Orbit that began operational flights in 2021, after being in development from 2007 to 2020. It is an air-launched rocket, designed to carry smallsat payloads of u ...

. In 2017, the aircraft was transferred to the orbital launch subsidiary,

Virgin Orbit Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which provides launch services for small satellites. On January 17, 2021, their ''LauncherOne'' rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, and successfully deployed 10 cubesats. The ...

, and its livery updated to ''Virgin Orbit'' livery. LauncherOne attempted its first launch on 25 May 2020; the launch was a failure. The first successful launch (second launch in total) took place on 17 January 2021.

Airliner

''Cosmic Girl'' was assembled in 2001 at the

Boeing Everett Factory The Boeing Everett Factory is an airplane assembly facility built by Boeing in Everett, Washington, United States. It sits at the northeast corner of Paine Field and includes the largest building in the world by volume at 13,385,378 m3 (472,37 ...

. It was configured as a 44/32/310 B747-41R, c/n. 32745. The aircraft's first flight was on 29 September 2001, and it was delivered to

on 31 October 2001, where it was registered as G-VWOW. On 3 November 2005, the aircraft was landing at Runway 27R at

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

when a crosswind caused it to roll to the left, and the left-most (No. 1) engine struck the ground. The plane was transferred to

in 2015 and re-registered in the United States as N744VG. ''Cosmic Girl'' is currently based at the

Long Beach Airport Long Beach Airport is a public airport three miles northeast of downtown Long Beach, in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is also called Daugherty Field, named after local aviator Earl Daugherty. The airport was an operating base ...

. However, the first UK launch of Cosmic Girl, which was originally scheduled for 2022, was postponed several times due to regulatory issues.

Launch platform

The jetliner was in-service with the airline until October 2015. The airliner, previously leased by

, was purchased outright by

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding c ...

for

, and registered as N744VG, in November 2015. A 747 was selected due to its carrying capacity. The acquisition of the 747 allowed the use of separate carrying aircraft for SpaceShipTwo and LauncherOne. With the spinoff of

in 2017, ''Cosmic Girl'' was also transferred. Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne on the way out to Sea (50846763897) (cropped)

The

air launch to orbit Air launch to orbit (ALTO) is the method of launching smaller rockets at altitude from a heavier conventional horizontal-takeoff aircraft, to carry satellites to low Earth orbit. It is a follow-on development of air launches of experimental air ...

LauncherOne

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

was originally envisioned to operate from the smaller airplane WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) launch platform, used for the suborbital

Tier 1b Tier may refer to: Groupings * Organizational, a ranking relationship involving order in a collective and its subordinate components *Ranking, a relationship involving order between a set of observations or variables * Data center tiers, Telecom ...

system of WK2 and

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is car ...

(SS2). As the size of LauncherOne expanded to better encompass the marketplace and acquire marketshare of small launches, the rocket outgrew WK2, leading to the evaluation of bigger launch aircraft, and the acquisition of ''Cosmic Girl'' for LauncherOne operations. The use of a larger airplane allows doubling of LauncherOne payload capacity to , though with the selection of a 747, ultimately, may be supported. 747s have previously been used to air launch other craft, including the Space Shuttle ''Enterprise''. The use of ''Cosmic Girl'' marks the first use of a 747 as a space launch platform. Boeing 747-41R G-VWOW Virgin Atlantic (10446816025)

Boeing 747-41R G-VWOW Virgin Atlantic (10446816025)

The LauncherOne attachment pylon is situated on the left wing, where on a normal 747, the fifth engine attachment point is located for ferrying engines. This point is located between the fuselage and the left inboard engine. LauncherOne would be dropped from ''Cosmic Girl'' at a height of . The maximum payload limit for LauncherOne operations on ''Cosmic Girl'' is . Making its first flight on 25 May 2020, a privately funded air-launched rocket, LauncherOne, developed and built by Virgin Orbit, failed to reach space after release from "Cosmic Girl" over the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The second launch, on 17 January 2021, successfully delivered 10 CubeSats to

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

(LEO).

References

{{Boeing 747 family Individual aircraft Boeing 747 Vehicles introduced in 2001 Virgin Orbit Virgin Galactic Virgin Atlantic Aircraft related to spaceflight

Airliner

Launch platform

See also

References