Updated at 7:20 pm East with post-launch comments from Virgin Orbit.
COVINGTON, Louisiana – Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket arrived in orbit on its second flight on January 17, demonstrating the performance of the air launch system after years of development.
The company’s Boeing 747 aircraft, called the Cosmic Girl, took off from the Air and Space Port of Mojave, Calif., At 1:38 pm East with the LauncherOne rocket attached. The plane flew over the Pacific off the coast of southern California and launched the rocket at about 2:39 pm.
The rocket ignited its NewtonThree first-stage engine for three minutes, followed by the NewtonFour engine’s stage separation and ignition in the rocket’s second stage for nearly six minutes. After a 46-minute coast, the rocket rekindled the NewtonFour by a five-second burn, followed by the deployment of the payload in an orbit of approximately 500 kilometers, although Virgin Orbit took more than an hour to confirm these final steps.
“A new space portal has just opened,” said Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit’s president and chief executive, in a post-launch statement, praising his company’s “laser focus” on the program, despite technical and of the ongoing pandemic. “That effort paid off today with a mission well done, and we couldn’t be happier.”
“Virgin Orbit achieved something that many considered impossible,” said Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, in that statement. “This magnificent flight is the culmination of many years of hard work and will also spark a new generation of innovators on the way to orbit.”
The launch was the culmination of a development program that dates back to July 2012, when Virgin Galactic announced its intention to develop a small launch vehicle to complement its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle. The LauncherOne was originally designed to use the same WhiteKnightTwo aircraft carrier from SpaceShipTwo, but the company later decided to purchase a Boeing 747 to use as an aircraft carrier. Virgin Galactic transformed the LauncherOne project into a separate company, Virgin Orbit, in 2017.
The customer for the Launch Demo 2 mission was NASA under a contract awarded in 2015 as part of its Venture Class Launch Services program to support emerging developers of small launch vehicles. The mission, called ELaNa 20 by NASA, transported 10 Cubosats from eight universities and a NASA center. Spacecraft are designed to carry out a series of scientific and technological demonstration missions.
Despite flying with payloads, Virgin Orbit emphasized before launch that the main purpose of the flight was to test the vehicle. “It’s important to note that this is a test launch,” said Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit’s president and chief executive, in a pre-launch call with reporters. “Any early launch of a launch system carries a certain risk.”
“We will be excited to receive the data and see the performance of the first and second phases as it follows its pace. We are also aware that there is a risk of reaching the final orbit, ”he added. “We are working vigorously and analyzing all the details to ensure that we have the best possible chance to reach orbit.”
Virgin Orbit’s first LauncherOne flight in May 2020 failed seconds after the rocket NewtonThree engine ignited. An investigation determined a rupture in the liquid oxygen supply line, causing the engine to shut down.
Hart said in the pre-launch call that the company brought “some of the best experts in the industry,” including former chief engineers of the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, for an independent investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and the U.S. Air Force monitored the investigation, with support from The Aerospace Corporation.
After identifying the cause, Virgin Orbit carried out a new structural analysis of that part of the vehicle and modified the components to solve the problem, followed by tests on a vibration table and static fire tests of the engine. The company also took a similar look at NewtonFour, the second-stage engine that had no chance to fire in the previous launch attempt. “There were a few minor mods that we did there too,” said Hart.
At the pre-launch briefing, Virgin Orbit did not disclose plans for the next launch, but Hart said the company was building the next LauncherOne rocket, which he described as “a few weeks from being ready”. Several other vehicles in the early stages of assembly. In the post-launch statement, the company confirmed that it is going into commercial operation with its next release, but has not released a timeline or client for that next release.
Hart said the company saw a diverse market for LauncherOne, with growing interest from U.S. national security customers. “The market has changed a bit, where government movements open up new opportunities there, and we are very focused on that,” he said. This is in addition to the demand from NASA and space agencies from other nations and constellation developers from dozens of small satellites.
“We are really positioned to accelerate the launch at a steady pace,” said Hart.