Virgin Orbit has targeted its third attempt for a space flight for Sunday.
The launch window of California’s Mojave Air and Space Port is on Jan. 17 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time, according to a tweet from Virgin One, with backup lions on Jan. 24 and 31.
This will be Virgin Orbit’s third trip to the launch site – the previous one was stopped in May 2020 due to engine problems and in December by an increase in cases of coronavirus.
If all goes well, the rocket will come loose at a distance of the cosmic girl Cosmic Girl at about 35,000 feet and float into orbit.
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Virgin One’s LauncherOne will take off from the Mojave Air and Space Port on January 17 between 10:00 and 14:00 local time.
‘Our overview of the launch of the launch [LRR] complete, our hardware looks good and our customers are ready, ” says the company tweeted.
‘We are following the latest actions identified at our LRR. Our launch is now aimed at NET [no earlier than] Sunday 17 January with additional windows in January if required. ‘
If all goes according to plan Sunday morning, Cosmic Girl will pull up with LauncherOne under one of its wings.
The rocket, designed to deliver small satellites into space, will fall about 35,000 feet free and float in orbit.
If all goes well, LauncherOne will be released from its transport plane, Cosmic Girl, at 35,000 feet and float in orbit
Ten CubeSats from NASA and various U.S. universities will be on board LauncherOne, which can deliver more than £ 1,000 payload to an equatorial orbit of 1,200 miles at low altitude, or up to 661 pounds for a 310-mile polar orbit.
If it reaches an altitude of 50 miles, this is the first time that Virgin Orbit has successfully launched something into space.
The Richard Branson division postponed LauncherOne’s first orbital test flight on May 24, 2020 due to a sensor problem.
‘Everything is going smoothly: team, planes and rocket are in excellent shape. However, we have one sensor that acts, ‘the company tweeted.
Ten CubeSats from NASA and various U.S. universities will be aboard LauncherOne, which can deliver more than £ 1,000 cargo to an equatorial orbit of 1,200 miles at low altitude, or up to 661 pounds for a 310-mile pole.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are unloading fuel to address,” he said, adding that the launch was “scrubbed for today.”
A further attempt, on May 25, made the start and LauncherOne was released from Cosmic Girl, but the engine died quickly and plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
According to the company, the failure was caused by an interruption in a liquid oxygen supply line to the rocket’s first phase engine.
LauncherOne’s first launch in May 2020 was a bust, as the rocket’s engine died shortly after it detached from Cosmic Girl.
“History is not very friendly for girl flights,” said Will Pomerantz, Virgin Orbit’s vice president of special projects. ‘I estimate my best faith, about half the girl [rocket] flight failed. So this is the historical opportunity we face. ‘
Pomerantz maintains that the Virgin Orbit team did everything in their power to prepare for the launch.
“You’re actually getting to a point where you’ve looked under every rock and verifying that you’re not doing anything else to verify that the system is ready.”
“That’s what we did.”
In December, another attempt, called ‘Launch Demo 2’, was broken off from New Mexico’s Space America due to a surge of coronavirus cases in Los Angeles, where Virgin Orbit is based.
The company said several team members tested positive, although there was no transfer between staff.