LauncherOne - Virgin Galactic's satellite launching rocket

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 13 мин. назад

Virgin Galactic's Todd Ericson is talking about the company's "north star" culture of safety that allows it to take "prudent" risks without endangering the uninvolved public.

12 мин. назад

Ericson: although Newsweek emphatically reported us flying at twice the speed of light, we instead flew about Mach 2.5. Our propulsion team isn't that good yet.

10 мин. назад

Ericson: we mated LauncherOne pylon to Virgin Orbit's 747 last week; first captive carry test flight in the next week.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 20 мин. назад

Clarification: the upcoming flight is an "envelope expansion" flight of just the 747 and its new pylon, rather than a full-fledged captive carry flight with a LauncherOne vehicle attached.

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 14 мин. назад

The pylon is on, baby. #GirlsWhoLift This critical mechanism keeps #LauncherOne attached securely to Cosmic Girl's wing as she makes her way skyward.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/08/31/virgin-orbit-nears-first-test-flights-with-air-launched-rocket/

Virgin Orbit nears first test flights with air-launched rocket
August 31, 2018 | Stephen Clark


Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft, named "Cosmic Girl," flies with a newly-installed rocket pylon under its left wing. Credit: Virgin Orbit

The attachment of a mounting bracket for Virgin Orbit's smallsat launcher under the wing of a modified passenger jetliner portends the start of a series of captive carry tests with a full-scale model of the rocket, culminating in a drop of the vehicle before the first orbital launch attempt.

Virgin Orbit is developing the LauncherOne rocket, which is set to become the first liquid-fueled orbital-class rocket to be dropped fr om fr om a carrier aircraft. The company says the first launch could happen by the end of this year, but officials have not set a target date for LauncherOne's maiden orbital test flight.

But the addition of a new pylon under the left wing of Virgin Orbit's Boeing 747 carrier jet, named "Cosmic Girl," signals testing of the LauncherOne system is about to enter a new phase, beginning with a series of captive-carry flights of an inert launch vehicle.

On operational missions, Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket will be dropped from the Boeing 747 jumbo jet over the ocean before igniting its main engine and climbing into orbit. The two-stage rocket, fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, stretches around 70 feet (21 meters) long and uses parts primarily developed and manufactured in-house at Virgin Orbit's Long Beach headquarters.

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A spinoff of Branson's Virgin Galactic, which aims to fly space tourists on suborbital trips to the edge of space, Virgin Orbit is one of many commercial companies working on smallsat launchers. One competitor, Rocket Lab, has already flown its Electron smallsat launcher twice, and others are close behind.

LauncherOne is one of the few air-launched rockets of the group, and the closest new air-dropped launcher to being flight-ready. Virgin Orbit says it sells the booster to customers for around $12 million per mission, delivering up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of payload hardware to a low-altitude equatorial orbit, or up to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) to a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous polar orbit.

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit's president and CEO, said the LauncherOne system is positioned to snag a significant share of the smallsat launch market. The company has more than $400 million in its backlog of launch contracts, covering dozens of missions for OneWeb — which is developing a constellation of 900 small communications satellites — NASA, the U.S. military and other commercial CubeSat and smallsat owners.

"There are a lot of people with concepts of launchers," Hart said in an interview with Spaceflight Now earlier this year. "There are a lot less teams with a significant amount of hardware and going to flight. That's No. 1. We are a well-supported company that is not only not doing an experiment, but actually has a production facility here in Long Beach developing rockets. So that differentiates us further."

A study last year released by Euroconsult reported more than 6,200 smallsats — spacecraft weighing up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) — are expected to be launched over the next decade, representing a market value of around $30 billion. Companies developing new light-class launchers say they will provide smallsats with a lower-cost launch option than existing rockets, which are sized to either carry up heavier payloads or bundle numerous microsats and CubeSats together on a single flight.


A test model of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rolls out of the company's Long Beach factory earlier this year. Credit: Virgin Orbit

CubeSats have also been deployed from the International Space Station. While that alternative carries an attractive price for smallsat owners, it limits payloads to a single type of orbit roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator.

To make the smallsat economy more vibrant, companies need to be able to put their satellites in a range of orbits. Analysts say that day will come when dedicated light launchers come to market.

"There's a lot of pent-up need," Hart said. "There's a lot of thirst for launch, and we'll have a bright future."

Virgin Orbit builds more than 90 percent of LauncherOne at its plant adjacent to Long Beach Airport, according to Will Pomerantz, vice president of special projects at the company. That vertical integration, coupled with an emphasis on simplicity and 3D printing, will make LauncherOne viable in the competitive commercial smallsat launch market, company officials said.

The air-launched concept also makes Virgin Orbit capable of putting up satellites into different types of orbits, ranging from polar to equatorial inclinations. LauncherOne's first test flight will follow a southerly heading over the Pacific Ocean off of Southern California, following takeoff from Mojave Air and Space Port.

Future missions, beginning with a multi-satellite launch for the U.S. military's Space Test Program next year, will be staged from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Virgin Orbit last month announced plans to base missions out of Cornwall Airport Newquay in southwest England.

The company says it is also assessing launch operations at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport in Hawaii and the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico.


Artist's illustration of LauncherOne underneath Virgin Orbit's "Cosmic Girl" carrier jet. Credit: Virgin Orbit

"Commercial is really leading the charge in small satellites," said Hart, a former Boeing executive and a veteran of the Delta launch team. "Government has gotten involved, which is great to see.

"I think we're seeing more momentum building as the government is coming to a realization that there are all these platforms and launch systems that are becoming available to them, which is a very different model than we saw some 40 years ago, wh ere government really plowed the path, developed the technology, and eventually commercial launch started to come about in the '80s and early '90s," Hart said. "This is really very strongly driven by commercial entrepreneurs, and a fair amount of investment that's coming in, which puts the government community in a great position."

Buoyed by hundreds of millions of dollars from Branson and Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments, Virgin Orbit has started up a factory adjacent to Long Beach Airport, built test stands near Mojave — home to Virgin Galactic — and now has parts of multiple rockets under construction.

Virgin Orbit's relationship with Branson also allowed the burgeoning launch company to acquire LauncherOne's carrier aircraft from Virgin Atlantic. Ground crews have stripped around 30 tons of weight and passenger seats from the airplane to allow it to haul LauncherOne — which weighs 57,000 pounds (nearly 26 metric tons) fully fueled — to an altitude of 35,000 feet (10.7 kilometers) to begin its journey into orbit.

LauncherOne is designed as an expendable rocket, but Virgin Orbit views the carrier plane mothership as part of the overall launch system. The air-dropped satellite launcher concept has its roots in Virgin Galactic, which at first considered lofting the rocket under the WhiteKnightTwo carrier jet used by the SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane.

"If you look at wh ere we are right now, No. 1, we have the most reusable initial stage that anybody has ever thought of having, a Boeing 747, which has been the workhorse in aeronautics for ages now," Hart said. "That's point No. 1 — very reusable and very flexible. We're on an operational cadence driven by a 747, not a launch pad.

"No. 2, our focus has been to drive the cost down through advanced manufacturing," he said. "It's to make as simple of a rocket as possible driven by manufacturing. It'll be a horse race a little bit over what kinds of reusability approaches come about, and how we innovate and what kind of manufacturing innovations we find, and we're always going to pick the most efficient way to operate for our customers."


Three hook interfaces will connect LauncherOne to the pylon under "Cosmic Girl's" left wing. Credit: Virgin Orbit

Simplicity is key to Virgin Orbit's ethos.

"We're not trying to build the biggest rocket, the highest-thrust rocket, the fastest rocket," said Will Pomerantz, Virgin Orbit's vice president of special projects, as Spaceflight Now toured the company's Long Beach factory in May. "We're trying to build the most affordable and reliable rocket that we think is commercially viable in the long run."

Virgin Orbit's engineers devised a rocket made entirely of carbon composite structures, using a single engine on its first stage and another engine, similar to the booster's powerplant, on the upper stage.

The NewtonThree engine on the first stage will generate 73,500 pounds of thrust in vacuum, firing for around three minutes on each mission. The second stage's NewtonFour engine will ramp up to 5,000 pounds of thrust, and can be reignited in space to maneuver into different orbits.

Both engines have been test-fired for years, and the finish line in the NewtonThree and NewtonFour development campaign is in sight for Virgin Orbit.

One major piece of the rocket Virgin Orbit outsourced was the engine turbopumps, which are produced by Barber-Nichols, the same company that designed the turbopump for SpaceX's Merlin rocket engine.

"The engines were the first part of the program that we started, well before we were thinking about avionics and tanks," Pomerantz said.

Virgin Orbit says it can build 24 rockets per year out of the Long Beach plant, thanks to new manufacturing techniques made possible with 3D printing. A massive hybrid manufacturing tool the size of a truck produces full-scale thrust chambers for the NewtonThree engine.

Parts manufactured by the hybrid tool, which can churn out components using 3D printing or with traditional "subtractive" processes, have been proven on Virgin Orbit's test stands in the Mojave Desert.

"Right now, to manufacture a NewtonThree engine using traditional subtractive manufacturing is about 10 months," Pomerantz said. "We'd like to build 24 rockets per year. You can do that with one part that takes 10 months, but it's not ideal. You'd have to build a bunch of them parallel. You'd have to start in advance. There are cash flow implications to that. There are risk implications to that."

New machining techniques could cut the time to build a rocket engine from 10 months to a few weeks, according to Pomerantz. Engineers can enter specifications for a part, and let the machine's computer do the rest.

"This is one of the big revolutions," Pomerantz said. "In my opinion, 3D printing has not yet made a very major impact on aerospace. A lot of people have (made) a bracket or widget or something modest, but nobody has flown a critical system yet."


Artist's concept of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne system. Credit: Virgin Orbit

In a separate part of the factory in Long Beach, engineers examine circuit boards that will go into computers responsible for overseeing the performance of LauncherOne's engines, separation systems, destruct mechanism, and other vital functions.

Miniaturization is the mantra here.

Like any rocket, LauncherOne will need avionics and computers to safely, and automatically, guide it into orbit.

"It's the same number of boards everyone else would have, but every time we shrink a big box from desktop computer-sized to the size of an iPad, that's 10 pounds that we're saving," Pomerantz said. "That starts to add up on a smaller vehicle."

Pomerantz said Virgin Orbit has drawn on engineering talent from computer companies to marry that know-how with the aerospace industry.

"If you're looking for companies who have spent a lot making computers miniaturized ... it's Samsung, it's Apple," he said.

LauncherOne will use an autonomous safety system, which would be activated to terminate a mission if it flew off course. SpaceX is already flying such a destruct mechanism on its Falcon family of rockets, eliminating the need for a range safety officer to send a flight termination command.

That streamlines LauncherOne's range requirements, permitting it to fly from a barebones spaceport.

"That's what allows us to fully take advantage of the flexibility that comes with the airplane," Pomerantz said. "We have found that one of our main selling points for our customers is the flexibility to launch from a variety of locations to hit different inclinations and orbital parameters. So it's nice to say we can fly from Mojave today, or from the SLF (Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility) tomorrow, and from other places.

"If we have to go spend a couple of years working on FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) licensing, then that's just a hollow talking point. We'd like for that to be very real."


Virgin Orbit president and CEO Dan Hart (right) leads GomSpace CEO Niels Buus on a tour in Long Beach. Credit: Virgin Orbit

LauncherOne will employ a similar air-launch concept as Northrop Grumman's Pegasus rocket, which first flew in 1990. Pegasus rockets, originally developed by Orbital Sciences, have launched on 43 orbital missions to date, with the 44th Pegasus flight carrying a satellite scheduled in early October.

But a Pegasus mission is priced at more than $50 million — out of reach for commercial smallsat owners — and NASA has been the only Pegasus customer in recent years.

"Pegasus was a very innovative system," Hart said. "It definitely plowed ground that was very valuable for the whole industry. It arrived at a time that was probably a little early for the kind of capability that small satellites can bring forward. Now, it's a different era."

LauncherOne will soon take to the skies for the first time, beginning with a series of captive-carry tests of an atmospheric test vehicle under Cosmic Girl's wing.

Since the installation of the pylon, the rocket's carrier plane has conducted several flights out of Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California, according to online aircraft tracking websites.

Virgin Orbit's pilots, led by Kelly Latimer, will practice flying the 747 jumbo jet with the rocket on-board, checking out the airplane's aerodynamic and handling qualities. Latimer is a former Air Force combat pilot, and she later served as a test pilot for NASA and Boeing before joining Virgin.

The captive-carry testing will culminate in a drop of the LauncherOne test rocket, filled with water instead of propellant to simulate the weight of a fully-fueled booster. Latimer's flying team and a network of instrumentation will evaluate the airplane's response to the rocket's release, and sensors aboard the test booster will collect data as it free falls back to Earth.

Hart said flight testing with LauncherOne's mothership and the completion of engine testing were two of his top priorities. The drop test will be a major step leading to the rocket's inaugural orbital launch, he said.

"That's the final verification that all the forces and the aerodynamics are well understood."

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 11 ч. назад

At #WSBW this morning, Virgin Orbit's Dan Hart provided an overview of the company's launch system, although no major announcements. "We're in full scale integrated checkout right now."

10 ч. назад

Hart notes the proliferation of small launch ventures and associated artists' renditions of them: the industry is probably hiring as many artists as engineers right now.
#WSBW

10 ч. назад

Hart, asked about last year's announcement of a planned Saudi investment in Virgin space companies: discussions still ongoing; we're focused on getting first flight later this year.
#WSBW

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 2 ч. назад

Our fearless leader has been off at #WSBW talking the talk with our customers and other industry leaders. Back here at Rocket Factory HQ, we're walking the walk with a factory floor that's more crowded than ever. https://spacenews.com/shakeout-looming-for-the-small-launch-sector/ ...

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Virgin Orbit - 2018 Highlights (So Far)

Virgin Orbit

Опубликовано: 1 окт. 2018 г.

We predicted 2018 would be even more fun and challenging than last year, and we were absolutely right. From engine hot-fires to crewed flight tests, check out everything we've accomplished this year so far on our journey to LauncherOne's first orbital flight.

(2:06)

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 21 окт.

TFW you're conducting a test flight of your airborne rocket launch pad and one of the nation's biggest air shows happens to be right next door. Thanks having #CosmicGirl as a surprise guest, @HBairshow!

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Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 20 окт.

Cosmic Girl exposed her underbelly today at #greatpacificairshow2018 revealing a perfect view of the pylon under her left wing. It's going to be insane to see a rocket attached to that thing. @Virgin_Orbit @Teslarati

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 8 мин. назад

#CosmicGirl, meet #LauncherOne. LauncherOne, meet Cosmic Girl. We think you'll be friends! We're conducting some fit checks now with our dedicated smallsat launch vehicle and our 747 flying launch pad. It's a beautiful day here in Long Beach!

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 24 мин. назад

You've seen photos of our rocket. You've flown on 747s. But it's hard to fully appreciate the scale of our flexible, affordable satellite launch system until you see our vehicles together! For the first time, here are images of #LauncherOne under the wing of #CosmicGirl – Virgin Orbit

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Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 1 ч. назад

Launcher One is looking pretty badass after being rolled into position under Cosmic Girl's pylon. #virginorbit #LauncherOne

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 11 ч. назад

Capping off a great day of firsts, we mated our #LauncherOne rocket to #CosmicGirl, our customized 747, as the sun set over the beautiful @LBAirport. An excellent way to cap off a smooth and successful day! – Virgin Orbit

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Интересно. Это макет ракеты?

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A.C. Charania‏ @ac_charania 16:05 - 18 нояб. 2018 г.

Flight track and altitude/speed plot of today's flight test (OBT01) of @Virgin_Orbit LauncherOne 747-400 carrier aircraft #CosmicGirl with pylon attached as well as rocket test article (photo via @zia_aero and figures via @flightaware)

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richardbranson

richardbranson Incredible progress for @virgin.orbit's 'flying launchpad': delighted to share that Cosmic Girl has completed a successful test flight with a rocket tucked under its wing for the first time

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https://www.virgin.com/news/virgin-orbit-completes-successful-captive-carry-test-flight-flying-launchpad

19 November 2018

Virgin Orbit completes successful captive carry test flight with 'flying launchpad'

Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl has taken to the skies with a rocket tucked under its wing for the first time. The specially modified 747-400 carrying a 70-foot-long rocket under its wing soared through the air as part of a successful test flight for Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne.

The flawless test flight took place in the cloudless skies over Southern California, with the small satellite launch company proving that its carbon-fiber two-stage rocket works perfectly as a pair with Cosmic Girl, the customised former passenger aircraft that serves as the company's 'flying launch pad.' The successful test puts more air under the wings - and fins - of the company's plans to reach orbit in early 2019.


Image credit: Virgin Orbit

The test, which Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart described as "a picture-perfect flight, and big step forward for our program," took place in Victorville, California - a test facility close both to Virgin Orbit's Long Beach factory and to one of its operational launch sites, the Mojave Air and Space Port.

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"The vehicles flew like a dream today," said Virgin Orbit Chief Pilot Kelly Latimer (Lt. Col, US Air Force, Ret.) "Everyone on the flight crew and all of our colleagues on the ground were extremely happy with the data we saw from the instruments on-board the aircraft, in the pylon, and on the rocket itself. From my perspective in the cockpit, the vehicles handled incredibly well, and perfectly matched what we've trained for in the simulators."


Image credit: Virgin Orbit

This successful flight marks the start of a new phase in Virgin Orbit's extensive test flight campaign. As part of that program, the company will conduct several more flights of its 747-400, some with a LauncherOne rocket attached and some without; each of which will allow the launch provider to gather critical data to further prove out the vehicle pair. With mountains of data already collected about the smooth handling of the system, future tests will focus on further proving out the robustness of the company's novel pylon, the carbon-fiber rocket itself, and the performance of the cutting-edge, light-weight avionics and flight computers on board the rocket. This portion of the years-long testing regime will conclude with a drop test, during which a rocket will be released from Cosmic Girl - without igniting - generating priceless data about Cosmic Girl's pylon and the rocket's behaviour as it freefalls through the atmosphere.

This flight is the latest in a string of major steps forward for Virgin Orbit. The rocket was first mated to the rocket in late October, and high-speed taxi tests were conducted only a week prior to this test flight. On the strength of that steady progress, Virgin Orbit projects its first space shot to be completed in early 2019. The launch provider expects to conduct multiple trips to orbit in the year ahead, and has already begun to build, test and integrate the rockets for those subsequent missions at its manufacturing facility in Long Beach, California.


Image credit: Virgin Orbit

Dan Hart capped the day by saying, "I'm extremely proud of Kelly, the flight crew, and all of our hard-working team. Their professionalism really shone through today, with our rocket and our plane up in the skies on a beautiful California day. There's still important work to do, but I know our team and our customers were all thrilled to see us taking this important step forward."

Head over to Richard's blog to read his views on the test flight, and Virgin Orbit to find out more.

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https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/cosmic-girl-takes-skies-rocket-under-its-wing

19 November 2018

Cosmic Girl takes to the skies with a rocket under its wing

By Richard Branson
19 November 2018
@richardbranson

If our 747 could talk, it would probably say "What on Earth is that hanging from my wing?" Delighted to share that Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl has completed a successful test flight with a rocket tucked under its wing for the first time.


Image from Virgin Orbit

The captive carry test flight saw the specially modified 747-400 carrying a 70-foot-long rocket under its wing in the skies over Southern California. It marks the first time a 747 has carried a rocket, let alone a space rocket, in its 70 year history and is a big step forward for the company as we look forward to reaching orbit in early 2019.

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Image from Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart and the team are doing an incredible job moving Virgin Orbit forward with remarkable skill and perseverance, and all of the Virgin family were so proud to see Cosmic Girl completing this milestone test with flying colours. Amazingly, the team went from our first taxi test to our first captive carry flight in a week!

I've been fortunate enough to spend time with the team on several occasions recently and see first-hand the progress being made. There are many challenges to overcome ahead, but the excellent data and performance in all aspects of this latest test flight is really encouraging. I'm looking forward to our first space shot in early 2019 and multiple trips to orbit in the year ahead.


Image from Virgin Orbit

Together with Virgin Galactic's strong progress in our testing program, 2019 is shaping up to be a huge year for our space companies. Head over to Virgin Orbit to read more of the details on the successful captive carry test flight and follow the latest news from our small satellite business.

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