1. Cosmic Girl Launch
2. Virgin Orbit 747-400
3. Virgin Orbit 747 Launch
4. Virgin Rocket Launch

Virgin Orbit spun off from Virgin Galactic, a company focused on suborbital human spaceflight, in 2017. Virgin Orbit conducted several “drop tests” of its LauncherOne rocket, which involved flying. Today, Virgin Orbit's Boeing 747, 'Cosmic Girl', performed the first Launch Demo mission where the company released its LauncherOne orbital rocket to ignite.

Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which provides launch services for small satellites. On January 17, 2021, their LauncherOne successfully reached orbit, and successfully deployed 10 cubesats.^[2]

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.^[3] 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.^[4][5]

Virgin Orbit focuses on small satellite launch, which was 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.^[6]

Vehicles[edit]

LauncherOne[edit]

On January 17, 2021, LauncherOne became the first Virgin Orbit vehicle to reach orbit, successfully deploying 10 CubeSats into Low Earth Orbit for NASA.^[2]

LauncherOne was deployed from the left wing of a retrofitted Boeing 747, 10 kilometers above Pacific Ocean.^[7] A unique approach as Virgin's competition all use launchpads.

The rocket was dedicated to the memory of Eve Branson, mother of Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, who died from Covid-19 on the 8th of January 2021.^[8][9]

Cosmic Girl[edit]

Cosmic Girl is the name of the modified Boeing 747 that Virgin Orbit uses to launch its rockets.^[10]

VOX Space[edit]

VOX Space is a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit that was created in the early 2020s. The company plans to supply launch services for the US military, sometimes referred to as the 'national security launch market.'^[11] The company intends to use the Virgin Orbit LauncherOnelaunch vehicle.

In April 2020, VOX Space was awarded a US$35 million contract for three launches of 44 cubesats. The first launch is slated to occur no earlier than October 2021.^[11][12]

Other projects[edit]

Ventilators[edit]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Virgin Orbit announced it was a partner in a new venture to build comparatively low-grade mechanical ventilators (breathing machines) -- specifically 'bridge ventilators' for partially recovered patients and patients not in intensive care—to address the critical global shortage of mechanical ventilators during the pandemic. To develop and produce them, Virgin Global—with the University of California Irvine and the University of Texas at Austin—formed the Bridge Ventilator Consortium. They had a prototype awaiting approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in March, and hoped to begin production in April.^[13][14][15]

Personnel[edit]

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 as a test and evaluation pilot notably on Typhoon jets. Acf gutenberg blocks. Orbit is about to start testing of its Cosmic Girl launch platform.^[16]

References[edit]

Cosmic Girl Launch

1. ^Fernholz, Tim (June 13, 2017). 'Virgin Orbit's newly-minted CEO will use psychology to launch satellites faster than anyone else'. Quartz. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
2. ^ ^abChristian Davenport (2021-01-17). 'Virgin Orbit rocket reaches Earth orbit, adding an entrant to the commercial space race'. The Washington Post.
3. ^Irene Klotz (2 March 2017). 'Virgin Galactic Unveils Spin-Off Virgin Orbit for Small-Satellite Launches'. Space.com.
4. ^Davenport, Christian (March 2, 2017). 'Richard Branson starting a new venture dedicated to launching small satellites into space'. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
5. ^'Virgin Galactic Makes Satellite Launch Service New Company'. U.S. News & World Report. Associated Press. March 2, 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
6. ^'Welcome, Virgin Orbit!'. Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic. Archived from the original on 8 March 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
7. ^Watch this rocket launch from the wing of a jumbo jet - CNN Video, retrieved 2021-01-19
8. ^January 2021, Mike Wall 17. 'Virgin Orbit launches 10 satellites to orbit in landmark test flight'. Space.com. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
9. ^'Branson's Virgin rocket takes satellites to orbit'. BBC News. 2021-01-17. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
10. ^'Branson's Virgin rocket takes satellites to orbit'. BBC News. 2021-01-17. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
11. ^ ^abErwin, Sandra (10 April 2019). 'Virgin Orbit's VOX Space wins $35 million U.S. Space Force launch contract'. SpaceNews. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
12. ^Kanayama, Lee (2020-04-10). 'LauncherOne Cryo Captive Carry test on Cosmic Girl - wins smallsat missions'. NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 2021-01-19.
13. ^'Virgin Orbit designs new ventilator as part of Virgin Group's efforts to combat coronavirus,' March, 2020, Space.com, retrieved April 2, 2020
14. ^'Coronavirus: Companies are helping meet shortages of ventilators, gowns, and more,' March, 2020, Business Insider, retrieved April 2, 2020.
15. ^'Branson's Virgin Orbit to begin coronavirus ventilator mass production,' March 30, 2020, NBC News, retrieved April 2, 2020.
16. ^Virgin Orbit selects RAF pilot as it plans satellite launch program, Ed Adamczyk, SpaceDaily, 2019-10-04

External links[edit]

• Media related to Virgin Orbit at Wikimedia Commons

Virgin Orbit has fulfilled its mission and achieved the most anticipated launch after months of testing, which managed to put its ninesatellites into orbit from its Boeing 747 . Richard Branson's company performed such a feat on Sunday morning, when Cosmic Girl took off from a base from California .

LauncherOne is the spacecraft, which was mounted on one of the wings of the Boeing 747, which would take nine nanosatellitesfrom NASA's educational program into space. Cosmic Girl took her flight over the Pacific Ocean at more than 10,500 km altitude before starting the countdown for the launch of the aerospace spacecraft.

Four hours after it was launched, Virgin claimed through its Twitter account Rd client for windows 10. that the satellites were successfully deployed in orbit, fulfilling their mission.

© Provided by Entrepreneur@Virgin_Orbit via Twitter

“Today's sequence of events for LaunchDemo2 went exactly as planned, from the safe execution of our ground operations to the successful full-duration burns on both engines. To say we're excited would be an understatement, but 240 characters couldn't do it justice anyway, ” Virgin Orbit said.

© Provided by Entrepreneur@Virgin_Orbit via Twitter

That said, of the nine satellites placed in orbit, one of these will be the one studying how tiny particles collide in space, another will serve as an experimental radiation-sensing satellite, and another will monitor temperature. All of these were developed by three US universities.

What made the difference in the Virgin Orbit launch?

It should be noted that Virgin Orbit is already part of the select group of companies dedicated to the development and launch of rockets, such as the two famous aerospace companies, SpaceX and Rocket Lab. However, Virgin's difference was that it threw its rocket from the air and not from a platform on the ground.

Virgin Orbit 747-400

© Provided by Entrepreneur@Virgin_Orbit via Twitter

Virgin Orbit 747 Launch

The Boeing 747-400, Cosmic Girl , a transformed aircraft that serves to load the spacecraft under one of its wings, was used for testing in mid-2019, since then it had been the first test that gave successful results. as for the airdrop, over the Mojave Desert , California , whose LauncherOne managed to separate completely and loaded from the wing, but it plummeted.

Virgin Rocket Launch

After months of tweaking, fixing and modifying, Virgin Orbit was set for a real launch in May last year, although not everything turned out as expected. Unfortunately, the mission ended very quickly due to a failure in the spacecraft at the start of the flight.

Virgin Orbit is expected to prepare more satellites from other customers for future launches. Richard Branson said that he, along with other investors, provided approximately $ 1 billion in order to get Virgin Orbit to place satellites in orbit and the goal could be met.

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