June 30, 2021
Virgin Orbit confirmed it
successfully deployed into orbit all 7 customer
satellites onboard its LauncherOne rocket during
today’s Tubular Bells: Part One mission.
Virgin Orbit’s 747 carrier
aircraft Cosmic Girl took off from Mojave Air
and Space Port this morning at approximately
6:50 A.M. PDT/1:50 PM UTC and flew out to a
launch site over the Pacific Ocean, about 50
miles south of the Channel Islands. After a
smooth release from the aircraft, the
LauncherOne rocket ignited and propelled itself
towards space, ultimately deploying its payload
into a precise target orbit approximately 500km
above the Earth’s surface.
LauncherOne carried a total
of 7 satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for
this rideshare mission: four R&D CubeSats for
the US Department of Defense, two optical
satellites for SatRevolution, and the Royal
Netherlands Air Force’s first military
satellite.
“Two successful launches
and two groups of happy customers in 5 months
really speaks to our team’s abilities. They’re
making air launch look easy — and I can tell you
from experience that it’s not,” said Virgin
Orbit CEO Dan Hart. “We can now proudly say that
17 satellites launched by our system are up in
space exactly in their target orbits. We’re
looking forward to growing that number
tremendously as we push to ramp up our flight
cadence in the coming months.”
“What an unforgettable
experience to be here in Mojave to watch the
Virgin Orbit team complete another perfect
mission to space. Everything went exactly to
plan and the fact that we dropped the rocket
from our 747 at 7:47 AM PDT made it particularly
fitting. Perfect timing!” said Virgin Orbit
founder Richard Branson. “We had customers here
from three countries and I congratulate all of
them and all of our wonderful team.”
