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Virgin Orbit Aces Second Launch Demo and Deploys NASA Payloads

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Virgin Orbit to Launch STEM Education Payloads for Junior Astronaut

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Virgin Orbit Adds Industry Leader Jim Simpson as Chief Strategy Officer

Featured , Technical Updates

Announcing the Window for Launch Demo 2

Blog , Featured

A Moment with a Mission Manager: Jeff Kwong

Featured , Press Releases

Virgin Orbit Aces Second Launch Demo and Deploys NASA Payloads

Featured , Press Releases

Virgin Orbit to Launch STEM Education Payloads for Junior Astronaut

Featured , Press Releases

Virgin Orbit Adds Industry Leader Jim Simpson as Chief Strategy Officer

Featured , Technical Updates

Announcing the Window for Launch Demo 2

Blog , Featured

A Moment with a Mission Manager: Jeff Kwong

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Our favorite rocket in orbit around our favorite p

Our favorite rocket in orbit around our favorite planet! No sweeter feeling.

Payloads successfully deployed into our target orb

Payloads successfully deployed into our target orbit! We are so, so proud to say that LauncherOne has now completed its first mission to space, carrying 9 CubeSat missions into Low Earth Orbit for our friends @nasa.

Today's sequence of events for #LaunchDemo2 went exactly to plan, from safe execution of our ground ops all the way through successful full duration burns on both engines. We are beyond thrilled!

With operations for our #LaunchDemo2 mission alrea

With operations for our #LaunchDemo2 mission already in full swing, it's an exciting morning here at Mojave Air and Space Port!

LOX loading on the rocket has begun, and we're looking good to hit our target takeoff time of approximately 10:30 AM Pacific.

Keep an eye on our Twitter feed today (@Virgin_Orbit) for by-the-minute updates as the mission progresses.

With weather looking favorable and our hardware in

With weather looking favorable and our hardware in great shape, our team is on track for tomorrow’s launch. But the real fun starts late tonight as we begin loading our fuel, RP-1, onto LauncherOne.

We’ll see you all in the morning as we open the day with cryogenic LOX loading. ❄️

Our Launch Readiness Review is complete, our hardw

Our Launch Readiness Review is complete, our hardware looks great, and our customers are ready. We're following through on the last actions identified at our LRR. Our launch is now targeted for NET Sunday, Jan 17, with additional windows in January if needed.

Kicking off the year in true Virgin fashion, we ha

Kicking off the year in true Virgin fashion, we have even more good news to share: Our newest customer is Junior Astronaut, a UK-based team working to encourage young students toward careers in STEM!

Junior Astronaut will launch its Nanonaut payload (as seen being manufactured above) on LauncherOne later this year, which students can track from Earth via smartphone app. The app also offers educational teasers such as algebra tutorials & more.

We love adding purpose-driven missions like this to our manifest! And we’re very eager to conduct a successful launch demo mission in the coming days. Once that’s behind us, we’ll really kick it into high gear with several customer missions in quick succession. 🚀

Update: our team is wrapping up final tasks, coord

Update: our team is wrapping up final tasks, coordinating with our customers, and preparing for our Launch Readiness Review on Friday morning. We are now targeting a launch on Wednesday, Jan 13, with additional windows throughout January if needed.

Our team is hitting the ground running in 2021! Th

Our team is hitting the ground running in 2021! The window for our Launch Demo 2 mission opens this Sunday, January 10th, with opportunities to launch throughout January.

After closing out December with a successful wet dress rehearsal (among other activities), we’re entering the new year riding a strong wave of momentum. Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne are in top form out on the tarmac at Mojave Air and Space Port.

With Covid-19 a constant watch item, we’re testing more often than ever and using every approach available to protect everyone’s health. The numbers in our local communities are still severe — please stay safe and cover your faces!

Now, with all of our major pre-launch tests complete, we’re making our way through our final reviews, checks, and readiness discussions.

It’s a busy start to the year but we’re focused and very excited to be flying to space soon.

Update from Mojave: as our teammates cleared their

Update from Mojave: as our teammates cleared their preventative quarantines, we got back into our pre-launch operations. Sunday and Monday, we completed our final wet dress rehearsal — the last big test we had planned prior to our launch.

Our policies around social distancing were strict before, but we’ve since implemented even more extreme measures to ensure the health and safety of our team. A full 2/3rds of the small crew who were on-site for our previous WDR supported this latest rehearsal remotely.

Our hardware is basically ready to go, as is our team. We are working with our partners in government and with our customers to identify our new candidate launch windows. We’ll publish new dates as soon as they are final, but currently, the window is likely to be mid-January.

Finally: to all of our friends, neighbors, and families, we wish you a joyous, safe, socially distanced, disinfected holiday season. As 2020 winds down and we all prepare to enter a new chapter, please take care of yourselves and your loved ones — and wear a mask!

With less than two weeks until our #LaunchDemo2 wi

With less than two weeks until our #LaunchDemo2 window opens, the last bits of work we need to complete are falling into place!

This week, among other activities, we integrated the encapsulated payload assembly to the forward end of LauncherOne.

Given that there are several small satellites nestled within (and that LauncherOne was already mated to Cosmic Girl), this was a delicate process. But our payload trailer served us well, allowing us to integrate fairing and rocket right on the tarmac in a cleanroom environment.

The transportability of our ground support equipment is partly what allows us to be so much more mobile than traditional launch systems. We’re looking forward to doing this same operation over and over again as we bring LauncherOne to new launch sites all around the world.