LauncherOne (bottom of picture) successfully ignites its first stage after being dropped by Boeing 747 “Cosmic Girl” (climbing away at the top of the picture)
Photo by: Virgin Orbit
Commercial small satellite launch company Virgin Orbit has reported that its first demonstration launch, on May 25, had had to be aborted because of an “anomaly” that occurred shortly after the rocket’s first stage had ignited. Virgin Orbit uses an air-launched rocket system in which the launch vehicle, designated LauncherOne, is carried aloft by a modified Boeing 747 ‘Mothership’ and then released.
The company stated that all the pre-flight checks had been successfully carried out. The Mothership, named Cosmic Girl, had successfully taken off and carried the LauncherOne rocket to the launch area and launch altitude. All launch preliminaries were successfully concluded, and multiple telemetry dishes had had a clear lock on LauncherOne. The rocket release had been clean and the booster engine had ignited successfully. The anomaly had occurred not long afterwards.
The necessary termination of the flight was safely done, and Cosmic Girl and all her crew safely returned to the Mojave Air and Space Port in the US state of California. Despite the failure, this mission had been the first time that Virgin Orbit had tried to ignite its rocket in the air, and that had been successfully achieved.
“Our team performed their prelaunch and flight operations with incredible skill today,” affirmed Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. “We accomplished many of the goals we set for ourselves, though not as many as we would have liked. Nevertheless, we took a big step forward today. Our engineers are already poring through the data. Our next rocket is waiting. We will learn, adjust, and begin preparing for our next test which is coming up soon.”
The second production LauncherOne rocket is undergoing final integration at the company’s manufacturing plant at Long Beach, also in California. Six or so other rockets are in less advanced stages of assembly. The company believes that its decision to start production of its rockets before its first demonstration flight will allow it to more rapidly progress to the next flight attempt, while still being able to make any necessary modifications to the rocket.
The company seeks to launch satellites with a mass of between 300 kg and 500 kg. LauncherOne is an all-carbon composite design two-stage expendable rocket. The plan is to build 24 LauncherOnes a year. The rocket is typically released by Cosmic Girl at an altitude of 35 000 ft (about 12 000 m). On a normal mission, Cosmic Girl has a crew of one pilot, one co-pilot and three flight engineers.
Virgin Orbit is part of the Virgin Group. It is a sister company to commercial suborbital crewed spaceflight company Virgin Galactic.