Virgin Orbit is a company within the

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 ...

which provides launch services for

small satellite 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 ...

s. On January 17, 2021, their ''

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 o ...

'' rocket successfully reached

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

for the first time, and successfully deployed 10

cubesat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

s. The company was formed in 2017 to develop the air-launched

rocket, launched from a modified Boeing 747 aircraft named Cosmic Girl; this tandem had previously been a project of

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 compan ...

. Based in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

, Virgin Orbit has more than 300 employees led by president Dan Hart, a former

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

of government satellite systems at

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

. Virgin Orbit focuses on small

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

launch, which was one of three capabilities being focused on by

. These capabilities are:

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

operations, small satellite launch, and advanced aerospace design, manufacturing, and test. On 30 December 2021 Virgin Orbit became a publicly traded company (symbol VORB) at the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

stock exchange. Virgin Orbit underwent a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp. II to become public; from its SPAC merger, Virgin Orbit raised $228 million or less than half than the $483 million it expected to raise. In August 2021 when the SPAC merger was announced, Virgin Orbit estimated it needed $420 million in cash, starting in the second half of 2021, to reach positive cash flow in 2024. Virgin Orbit held an “opening bell” ceremony at Nasdaq January 7, 2022 to celebrate going public. A few months before going public, Virgin Orbit was owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and the Emirati state-owned

Mubadala Mubadala Investment Company PJSC ( ar, شركة مبادلة للاستثمار), or simply Mubadala, is an Emirati state-owned holding company that acts as a sovereign wealth fund. The company was established in 2017 when then-named Mubadala Dev ...

, which had invested about $1 billion into Virgin Orbit up to August 2021. At the SPAC merger Virgin Orbit was valued at $3.7 billion in equity. When the SPAC merger was announced in August 2021, Virgin Orbit aimed to be profitable on an

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced , , or ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, stat ...

-basis by 2024. The company said it had about $300 million in active contracts, and expected its rocket launch business to grow to about 18 launches in 2023. The company expected to have about $15 million in revenue in 2021, with an EBITDA loss of $156 million; however, it aimed at further revenue growth, reaching $2.1 billion in revenue by 2026. In the early hours of 10th January 2023, the company confirmed that their first launched rocket from the United Kingdom had experienced an 'anomaly' and had failed to reach its planned orbit.

Vehicles

LauncherOne

On May 25, 2020, LauncherOne's first launch failed to reach orbit. On January 17, 2021, LauncherOne became the first Virgin Orbit vehicle to reach orbit, successfully deploying 10

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

s into

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 ...

for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

on its final demonstration mission. LauncherOne was deployed from the left (port) wing of a retrofitted

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...

, 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) above 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 rocket was dedicated to the memory of

Eve Branson Evette Huntley Branson (née Flindt; 12 July 1924 – 8 January 2021) was a British philanthropist, child welfare advocate, and the mother of Richard Branson. Life and career Branson was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England, the daughter of Do ...

, mother of

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

, founder of Virgin, who died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on the 8th of January 2021. On June 30, 2021, LauncherOne successfully delivered its first commercial

payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...

to space. On January 13, 2022, LauncherOne successfully delivered seven cubesats for three customers into orbit. On 2 July 2022 LauncherOne flew a successful mission. On 9 January 2023 LauncherOne failed to put satellites into orbit. This was Virgin Orbit's first launch from the UK and first launch from a location other than

Mojave Air and Space Port The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of . It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a sp ...

Cosmic Girl

Cosmic Girl is the name of the modified

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 ...

that Virgin Orbit uses to launch its rockets. In 2022, Virgin Orbit announced plans to acquire additional 747s with the ability to transport the rocket and ground support equipment internally.

VOX Space

VOX Space is a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit that was created in 2020. The company supplies launch services for the

US military The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six Military branch, service branches: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States N ...

, sometimes referred to as the "

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...

launch market." The company uses the Virgin Orbit

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 pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

. The current president as of July 2022 is Mark Baird, who took over on 17 August 2021. In April 2020, VOX Space was awarded a contract for three launches of 44

s for

US Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world's only independent space force. Along with its sister branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space ...

. The first of these launches succeeded on 2 July 2022.

Other projects

Ventilators

In response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

in early 2020, Virgin Orbit announced it was a partner with the

University of California Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

and the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in a new venture to build simplified

mechanical ventilator A ventilator is a piece of medical technology that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently. Ventilators ...

s — specifically "bridge ventilators" for partially recovered patients and patients not in

intensive care Intensive care medicine, also called critical care medicine, is a medical specialty that deals with seriously or critically ill patients who have, are at risk of, or are recovering from conditions that may be life-threatening. It includes pro ...

— to address the critical global shortage of ventilators."Virgin Orbit designs new ventilator as part of Virgin Group's efforts to combat coronavirus,"
March, 2020,

Space.com Space.com is an online publication focused on space exploration, astronomy, skywatching and entertainment, with editorial teams based in the United States and United Kingdom. The website offers live coverage of space missions, astronomical discov ...

, retrieved April 2, 2020"Branson's Virgin Orbit to begin coronavirus ventilator mass production,"
March 30, 2020, ''

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

,'' retrieved April 2, 2020. They were granted an emergency use authorization by the US

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

(FDA) in April 2020.

Launch site in the UK

Virgin Orbit agreed to launch space flights from Spaceport Cornwall in a project partly funded by the

UK Space Agency The United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) is an executive agency of the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the United Kingdom's civil space programme. It was established on 1 April 2010 to replace the British National Space Centre ...

. Virgin Orbit's first UK launch took place on 9th January 2023. The rocket was deployed successfully, but suffered an "anomaly" and failed to reach its intended orbit.

Launch site in Brazil

In April 2021, the

Brazilian Space Agency The Brazilian Space Agency ( pt, Agência Espacial Brasileira; AEB) is the civilian authority in Brazil responsible for the country's space program. It operates a spaceport at Alcântara, and a rocket launch site at Barreira do Inferno. It is ...

disclosed the company among those selected to operate orbital launches from the Alcantara Launch Center in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

.On 27 June 2022, Virgin Orbit announced a Brazil-based subsidiary, Virgin Orbit Brasil Ltda, which will facilitate launches from the Alcantara Launch Center. The Brazil based launch center is just 2 degrees south of the

Equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

, allowing launches to almost every

orbital inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...

Launch site in Australia

In September 2022, Virgin Orbit signed an agreement with Wagner Corporation to base a 747-400 launch aircraft at

Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport is an airport in Wellcamp, west from the CBD of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. It was known as Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport until November 2017. The airport and an associated aviation and business park is the ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

with a demonstrator launch planned for 2024.

Personnel

In October 2019, Virgin Orbit announced that Matthew Stannard was joining as a pilot on a three-year contract. Stannard had previously served in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

as a test and evaluation pilot notably on

Typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

jets. At that time Orbit was about to start testing its ''Cosmic Girl'' launch platform.Virgin Orbit selects RAF pilot as it plans satellite launch program
Ed Adamczyk, SpaceDaily, 2019-10-04

References

External links

* {{Virgin Galactic Aerospace companies of the United States Private spaceflight companies Commercial launch service providers Virgin Galactic Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Long Beach, California Technology companies established in 2017 American companies established in 2017 2017 establishments in California Aabar Investments