Above the Clouds
LauncherOne
Virgin Orbit
Mission
Above the Clouds
Type: Communications
Launch Cost: $12,000,000
Mission to a 500 km circular orbit inclined at 45 degrees carrying eight R&D satellites from US government agencies with communications and navigation experiments as well as two Earth-observation nanosatellites from Polish company SatRevolution.
Trajectory
The trajectory is unavailable. Check back for updates.
Location
Mojave Air and Space Port
Air launch to orbit
51 rockets have launched from Air launch to orbit.
Rocket
LauncherOne – Virgin Orbit
- Family: Launcher
- Length: 16 m
- Diameter: 1.6 m
- Launch Mass: 30 T
- Low Earth Orbit Capacity: 500 kg
The LauncherOne was manufactured by Virgin Orbit with the first launch on 2020-05-25. LauncherOne has 4 successful launches and 2 failed launches with a total of 6 launches. 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.
Agency
Virgin Orbit – VO
- Type: Commercial
- Abbreviation: VO
- Administration: President: Dan Hart
- Founded: 2017
- Launchers: LauncherOne
- Country: USA
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
Happy New Year Sir Richard hope this launch is successful.
I agree w/Ken and Judy.
Happy New Year Aaron here’s to more great space exploration missions in 2022.
Stay safe .
Is there a way to add this to Google Calendar?
Is this a launch we could see from Daytona Beach on the beach?
No they launch from a plane over the ocean.
Great to see VORB getting 2022 started with air launch!
Great web coverage and graphics of the mission and small satellites are changing the world we live in , go Virgin Orbit.