(Adds details on test)
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Billionaire Richard Branson’s
Virgin Orbit reached space for the first time on Sunday with a
successful test of its air-launched rocket, achieving a key
milestone after aborting the rocket’s first test launch last
year.
The Long Beach, California-based company’s LauncherOne
rocket was dropped mid-air from the underside of a modified
Boeing 747 nicknamed Cosmic Girl some 40,000 feet over the
Pacific at 11:39 a.m. PT before lighting its NewtonThree engine
to boost itself out of Earth’s atmosphere.
"According to telemetry, LauncherOne has reached orbit!" the
company announced on Twitter during the test mission, dubbed
Launch Demo 2. "In both a literal and figurative sense, this is
miles beyond how far we reached in our first Launch Demo."
The rocket, a 70-foot launcher tailored for carrying small
satellites to space, aimed to place 10 tiny satellites in orbit
for NASA roughly two hours into the mission, though Virgin Orbit
had not confirmed whether they were deployed as planned.
The successful test and potentially clean payload deployment
would be a needed double-win for Virgin Orbit, which last year
failed its attempt to reach space when LauncherOne’s main engine
shut down prematurely moments after releasing from its carrier
aircraft. The shortened mission generated key test data for the
company, it said.
The Cosmic Girl carrier craft had taken off from an airstrip
at the Mojave Air and Space Port in southern California under
clear skies Sunday morning, bringing LauncherOne to its target
altitude for launch.
The Launch Demo 2 mission was aimed at “enhancing our
knowledge & demonstrating LauncherOne's full capabilities,” the
company wrote on Twitter Sunday.
Virgin executives say high-altitude launches allow
satellites to be placed in their intended orbit more efficiently
and also minimize weather-related cancellations compared to more
traditional rockets launched vertically from a ground pad.
Competition is fierce between Virgin Orbit, Firefly and
U.S.-New Zealand company Rocket Lab, which are designing smaller
or non-traditional systems to inject smaller satellites into
orbit and meet growing demand.
Virgin Orbit’s government services subsidiary VOX Space LLC
is selling launches using the system to the U.S. military, with
a first mission slated for October under a $35 million U.S.
Space Force contract for three missions.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Eric M.
Johnson and Daniel Wallis)