Virgin Orbit planned its third space flight attempt for Sunday.
The launch window for the Mojave Air and Space Port in California is scheduled for January 17 between 10 am and 2 pm local time, according to a Virgin One tweet, with reservation slots on January 24 and 31.
This will be Virgin Orbit’s third trip to the launch pad – the previous ones were aborted in May 2020 due to engine problems and in December by an increase in coronavirus cases.
If all goes well, the rocket will fall from the Cosmic Girl plane at approximately 35,000 feet and enter orbit.
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Virgin One’s LauncherOne is scheduled to take off from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port on January 17 between 10 am and 2 pm local time
‘Our launch readiness analysis [LRR] complete, our hardware looks great and our customers are ready, ‘the company tweeted.
‘We are following the latest actions identified in our LRR. Our launch is now geared towards NET [no earlier than] Sunday, January 17, with additional windows in January, if necessary. ‘
If everything goes according to plan on Sunday morning, Cosmic Girl will take off with LauncherOne under one of its wings.
The rocket, which was designed to launch small satellites into space, will fall freely at approximately 35,000 feet and enter orbit.
If all goes well, LauncherOne will drop free of its plane, Cosmic Girl, at 35,000 feet and float in orbit
Ten CubeSats from NASA and several American universities will be on board LauncherOne, which can deliver more than 1,000 pounds of payload in a 1,200-mile low-altitude equatorial orbit, or up to 661 pounds in a 310-mile-high polar orbit.
If it reaches an altitude of 50 miles, it will be the first time that Virgin Orbit has successfully launched something into space.
Richard Branson’s property division postponed LauncherOne’s first orbital test flight on May 24, 2020 due to a problem with a sensor.
‘Everything has been going well: the team, the aircraft and the rocket are in excellent shape. However, we have a sensor that is malfunctioning, ‘tweeted the company.
Ten CubeSats from NASA and several US universities will be on board the LauncherOne, which can deliver more than 1,000 pounds of cargo for a 1,200-mile low-altitude equatorial orbit, or up to 661 pounds for a 310-mile-high polar orbit
‘As a precaution, we are unloading fuel to resolve, he said, adding that the launch was’ clean for today’.
Another attempt, on May 25, managed to take off and saw the LauncherOne launched from Cosmic Girl, but its engine died quickly and it plunged into the Pacific.
According to the company, the failure was caused by a break in the liquid oxygen supply line of the rocket’s first stage engine.
The first launch of LauncherOne in May 2020 was a failure, as the rocket engine died shortly after splitting from Cosmic Girl
“The story is not very kind with first flights,” said Will Pomerantz, Virgin Orbit’s vice president of special projects. ‘Taking my best estimate of faith, about half the maiden [rocket] flights fail. So this is the historical probability that we are against.
Pomerantz insisted that the Virgin Orbit team did everything possible to prepare for the launch.
‘Basically, you get to the point where you look under each stone and check that there is nothing more to do to make sure the system is ready.’
“This is what we did.”
In December, another attempt, dubbed ‘Launch Demo 2’, was aborted at Spaceport America in New Mexico because of an increase in coronavirus cases in Los Angeles, where Virgin Orbit is based.
The company said several team members had a positive result, although there was no transmission between employees.