Richard Orans’s Virgin Orbit successfully launched a rocket into space, demonstrating for the first time the feasibility of its air transport strategy.
Following the test, in which small satellites were sent into a low orbit, the company said it was now “switching to commercial service for its next mission”.
Eight months after a previous test failed, the company’s LauncherOne rocket was dropped off the coast of Southern California on Sunday at 11.39am during Pacific time of a Boeing 747 – nicknamed Cosmic Girl.
The rocket ignited moments later and went to space.
“According to telemetry, LauncherOne has reached an orbit!” posted the company on Twitter ten minutes later, confirming a successful first phase. “Everyone on the team who is not currently in mission control is absolutely going crazy.”
The rocket had a payload of ten satellites that would be used as part of the Nasa educational missions. Virgin Orbit confirmed at 2.28pm that the payload had been deployed in a low lane.
“We are so proud to say that LauncherOne has now completed its first mission to space,” the team wrote.
Virgin Orbit’s 35,000-foot missile launch system is different from its competitors in that it eliminates the need for specialist ground-based launch sites.
Virgin Orbit said the method offers the possibility of sending payloads from runways around the world into a runway and reduces the risk of the weather-related disruption of flight plans.
For Sunday’s test, Cosmic Girl took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in southern California.
Virgin Orbit, which was singled out as a separate company three years ago, wants to catch up with competitors in the increasingly competitive commercial space transportation market.
According to Rocket Lab, Longet-based Rocket Lab has so far launched 96 satellites. The next mission – codenamed “Another One Leaves The Crust” – is launched when conditions allow it from a site in New Zealand.
Sunday’s mission will give Virgin Orbit confidence in its strategy following a failed test of the system with a dummy charge in May, in which the rocket did not fully ignite after falling from the plane. Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, later said that a breach in a propelling supply line caused the rocket to stop prematurely.
In a statement following Sunday’s Test, Richard Branson said: “Virgin Orbit has achieved something that was considered very impossible”.
Virgin Orbit is a separate effort to Virgin Galactic, a company that plans to offer space tourism starting later this year.
Galactic will compete with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, who did a successful full-scale test of his New Shepard capsule last week, and a dummy – named Mannequin Skywalker, a play about the Star Wars character – safely back bring to earth after a journey to the edge of space.