{"id":15326,"date":"2020-05-25T16:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/?p=2568663"},"modified":"2020-05-25T16:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T16:12:00","slug":"small-satellite-launcher-virgin-orbit-plans-to-fly-its-rocket-for-the-first-time-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/25\/small-satellite-launcher-virgin-orbit-plans-to-fly-its-rocket-for-the-first-time-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit plans to fly its rocket for the first time this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>Virgin Orbit’s 747 Cosmic Girl and rocket LauncherOne<\/em> | Image: Virgin Orbit<\/small><\/p>\n

Small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit — the sibling company to Richard Branson’s space tourism venture Virgin Galactic — plans to conduct the first test launch of its rocket today. The company has been developing and testing its vehicles for the last six years, but now it’s ready to finally send a rocket to orbit.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit’s primary rocket is called LauncherOne, capable of launching small to medium payloads, roughly the size of washing machines, to space. And the rocket takes a unique path to get there. Rather than launching upright from the ground — as the majority of rockets do these days — LauncherOne actually takes off from underneath the wing of a Boeing 747 airplane. Nicknamed Cosmic Girl, the 747 is designed to carry LauncherOne up to 35,000 feet. There, the plane pulls up, angling the rocket toward the sky, and then LauncherOne drops away. Its main engine ignites, propelling LauncherOne the rest of the way to orbit.<\/p>\n

“We’re a very unique system in that we are air launched,” Dan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, said during a press conference. “And what that gives us is incredible flexibility. In fact, we have mobility; we can fly to space from any place that can host a 747, which is almost any place, and we can go to any orbit.”<\/p>\n

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