LauncherOne - Virgin Galactic's satellite launching rocket

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LauncherOne Main Stage Mission Duty Cycle Hotfire

Virgin Orbit

Опубликовано: 22 мая 2019 г.

We're proud to announce that we completed perhaps the most challenging, most important, and most successful test in the history of our LauncherOne program: Last week, we lit up our Mojave site with our final full duration, full scale, full thrust – hell, full everything – test firing of LauncherOne's main stage. That's more than three minutes of controlled rocket thrust, using all of the same equipment we'll use on our actual flights to orbit later this year.

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 3 ч. назад

Our pilots and launch engineers are all smiles after another successful test flight, this one with a fully-loaded #LauncherOne rocket under the wing of our 'flying launch pad.' Here's a taste of the beautiful views today in the skies above @MojaveAirport

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Thomas Zurbuchen‏Подлинная учетная запись @Dr_ThomasZ 3 ч. назад

Great to read this - congrats! At NASA Science, and especially in @NASAEarth and @NASASun, we see many great ideas that are implemented with payloads at this class of #SmallSats #CubeSats

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 16 ч. назад

Virgin red sure looks good against the blue backdrop of the Mojave skies!
Here's a few more shots from Friday's heavy rocket flight test with Cosmic Girl.

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NASA, Virgin Orbit Test 3D Printed Rocket Engine Combustion Chamber

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

Опубликовано: 29 мая 2019 г.

Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center record the test-firing of a 3D-printed combustion chamber. Researchers are exploring advanced additive manufacturing solutions, introducing higher-performing alloys and refined printing processes. Read the full story here: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall.... (NASA/Virgin Orbit)

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 42 мин. назад

Mojave.
Guam.
The U.K.

Did you think we'd stop there?

Today, we're announcing a new partnership with @FlyANA_official to bring our LauncherOne services to Japan.

Read more: https://virg.in/ANA 

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 7 мин. назад

Rich DalBello, Virgin Orbit: planning first LaunchOne launch in late summer or early fall.
#ISDC2019

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 2 ч. назад

Ever wonder what #LauncherOne looks like from Cosmic Girl's perspective? Here's some more footage from our most recent captive carry flight test, featuring never-before-seen angles of our flying launchpad.

Video (1:00)


2 ч. назад

This flight was all about pushing the limits of our carrier aircraft, testing for stall and high-G maneuvers. You catch an amazing view of the edge of space as our pilots soar through our launch release maneuver, pulling up to a 30° pitch attitude before banking right to recover.




2 ч. назад

Our pilots reported that Cosmic Girl and the fully loaded LauncherOne flew excellently throughout the flight, and passed inspection with no concerns after landing. On to the next one!

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 1 ч. назад

And we're off to the races again for another flight with a heavy rocket underwing! The big objective today is to make sure that we're ready for our upcoming drop test. Keep an eye out on our channels for more shots of our pilots practicing the drop maneuver with Cosmic Girl.

Video


49 мин. назад

It was an early start this morning for some of our staff, but it's always worth it to see this aircraft soar into the sunrise! A quick hello from @richardbranson on comms does wonders for the spirits, too.

[Старый]

И что они надеются получить с этого Пегаса?

[Not]

Старый пишет:
И что они надеются получить с этого Пегаса?

шерсти клок.

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 14 ч. назад

Call us romantics, but we've always been fascinated by the intersection of art and technology. So when our engineers requested some visual markers on LauncherOne's fins for testing, we figured we'd have our in-house artists make them visually stunning too!

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 14 мин. назад

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit: launching this year; just finished guidance and navigation checkouts on the rocket yesterday.
#SpaceEntSummit

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Kevin Zagorski‏ @KevZag 1 июл.

LauncherOne Flight 1. Soon. (via @Virgin_Orbit)

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https://www.nasa.gov/content/upcoming-elana-cubesat-launches

Upcoming ELaNa CubeSat Launches

ELaNa XX

Mission:  Virgin Orbit Flight 2 LauncherOne – Mojave, California
11 CubeSat Missions scheduled to be deployed

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• CACTUS-1 – Capitol Technology University, Laurel, Maryland
• CAPE-3 – University of Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana
• EXOCUBE-2 – California Polytechnic University, San Louis Obispo, California
• INCA – New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
• MicroMas-2b – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, Massachusetts
• MiTEE – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• PICS – Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
• PolarCube – University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado
• Q-PACE – University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
• RadFXSat-2 – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
• TechEdSat-7 – NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett, California
  

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 2 ч. назад

After another smooth test flight with Cosmic Girl yesterday, we've got the thumbs-up to advance to our drop test in the very near future. But why do we drop our rocket before we launch it — and what comes after? Check out our latest blog post for details: https://virg.in/WaitForTheDrop

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https://virginorbit.com/wait-for-the-drop/

WAIT FOR THE DROP
JULY 9, 2019



If you live somewhere close to the Mojave high desert, it's quite likely in recent months that you've seen a plane soar overhead with flashy red livery and — yes — a 70-foot long rocket under its wing. In the run-up to our first space shot, Virgin Orbit has completed a steady progression of test flights with our carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne vehicle — and yesterday, we successfully flew the last one in our captive carry test campaign.

That means we're now in the clear to progress to a drop test in the very near future. On this flight, we will release a fully built, fully loaded LauncherOne rocket from Cosmic Girl for the first time. We'll be monitoring and rehearsing a million things, but this test is really all about those few seconds just after release, as we ensure the rocket and aircraft separate cleanly and observe how the rocket freefalls through the air.

This upcoming drop test is a huge deal for our team. It represents the last major step of a development program we began in 2015, focused not just on designing a rocket but proving it out alongside the modified 747 that serves as our flying launchpad — not to mention simultaneously building out our manufacturing facility. It's impossible to quantify how much effort and joy and frustration and brainpower we've poured into this project, so you can imagine the sense of anticipation we feel as we look toward one of our significant milestones to date.

Cosmic Girl is ready, the test rocket is ready, the team is ready — and we'll be flying as soon as we can coordinate the airspace over Edwards Air Force Base. Stay tuned to our social media channels for updates on that flight, and on what comes next. Speaking of...

AFTER THE DROP

Strangely, no one ever asks us when our first launch is going to happen! Okay, well, that's not exactly true. We've gotten your emails, your Tweets, your LinkedIn messages, your Instastories, your TikToks, and that one MySpace message. And we're so excited that you'reso excited about our upcoming test launch. So we're pumped to tell you more about what comes next.

In our final progression to launch, we've been advancing on three parallel streams of work. We needed to go and test our rocket on the ground, proving that our engines, tanks, pumps, software, and everything else can all work together as integrated stages. Check! We had to complete our

View this post on Instagram

, and as you've just read, and we're nearly ready to check that box. Finally, we needed to build and prepare our first orbital rocket. Well, here's what that looks like now:



As you can see, our first orbital rocket is fully built and has been extensively tested. Later this month, our integration team will wrap up that testing, mate the stages together, and then hand the rocket off to our launch operations team.

After that, our LaunchOps crew will run through the checks and rehearsals any serious rocket company does in the lead up to a flight. We've already fired our engines, separated our stages, and (pretty soon) taken off and released the rocket from the carrier aircraft. The last piece of the puzzle is combining it all into a seamless launch. Everything we do from here on out will be to demonstrate that the system can operate safely as a fully integrated whole — and that the people on our team have thought of and practiced everything they could ever need to do on launch day.

The LauncherOne story is just getting started. To stay in the loop as Virgin Orbit prepares for our first flight to space, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn — or sign up for our monthly newsletter, chock full of technical updates and small satellite news from around the world.

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 2 ч. назад

And we're off!  Cosmic Girl and #LauncherOne are wheels up at @MojaveAirport.




2 ч. назад

Our flight crew, led by Chief Test Pilot Kelly Latimer, are now cruising out to our designated drop location above @EdwardsAFB. If you've never met Kelly, get to know her in this great @latimes profile by @smasunaga.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-himi-kelly-latimer-virgin-orbit-pilot-20190620-story.html?hootPostID=2d6de67f94296bd9fb0816c9998da55d

2 ч. назад

Cosmic Girl is now on the "racetrack" — a loop we run to get all lined up for the drop.




1 ч. назад

RELEASE RELEASE RELEASE! Flight crew onboard Cosmic Girl and our chase plane report good, clean separation. For the first time ever, #LauncherOne is flying freely.


1 ч. назад

Cosmic Girl is back to straight and level flight, and #LauncherOne looked fantastic in the air today.


52 мин. назад

Dude, where's my rocket?




52 мин. назад

Mission complete! Thanks again to our friends @EdwardsAFB for hosting us today. We promise, we'll leave the base cleaner than we found it. Our ground crew are moving into position shortly. 

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 48 мин. назад

After today's awesome drop, our full attention shifts to this rocket right here. Like our latest blog mentions, we'll finish mating the stages together later this month before kicking off a final series of check-outs & rehearsals in the lead-up to our orbital test flight.




42 мин. назад

Oh, and by the way, we've already started work on the next rocket, and the one after that, and the one after that too. END THREAD

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Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 49 мин. назад

Virgin Orbit's Dan Hart says his team is very happy after today's LauncherOne drop test. "This is our capstone event," he says. If everything goes well, he expects the first launch by the end of the summer.

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Virgin Orbit‏Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 13 мин. назад

Now THAT's what I call a drop test! Video from today's very successful drop test of our #LauncherOne small satellite launch vehicle. More photos and videos coming soon.

Video

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https://tass.ru/kosmos/6652382

10 ИЮЛ, 23:01
Virgin Orbit испытала систему воздушного старта ракет для вывода спутников на орбиту

Испытания проводились в небе над пустыней Мохаве в Калифорнии

НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 10 июля. /ТАСС/. Компания Virgin Orbit британского миллиардера Ричарда Брэнсона в среду в небе над штатом Калифорния успешно испытала систему воздушного запуска ракет-носителей, предназначенных для вывода спутников на орбиту Земли. Об этом Virgin Orbit информировала в своем Twitter.

Испытания проводились во время полета модифицированного самолета Boeing 747, оборудованного системой сброса ракеты, в небе над пустыней Мохаве в Калифорнии. Сам боезаряд был холостым и, помимо металлических болванок, нес воду и антифриз для придания необходимой массы.

"Вот это мы называем настоящим тестом на сбрасывание. Испытание сброса небольшого носителя, предназначенного для запуска спутников, прошло очень успешно", - информировала Virgin Orbit, разместив также видео теста. Компания планирует до конца июля завершить сборку ракеты-носителя в ангаре в городе Лонг-Бич (штат Калифорния) и приступить к подготовке к первому испытательному запуску. Его предполагается осуществить до завершения лета.

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Схожий принцип пусков использует другое предприятие Брэнсона - Virgin Galactic. В феврале текущего года эта компания провела испытательный суборбитальный запуск корабля SpaceShipTwo, который поднялся на высоту почти 90 км. На его борту находились пилоты Дейв Маккей и Майкл Мазуччи, а также руководитель группы подготовки персонала компании Бет Мосес.

Virgin Galactic осваивает суборбитальный туризм. Ожидается, что у этой компании стоимость двухчасового полета, во время которого шесть пассажиров смогут увидеть Землю с высоты 100 км, составит около $250 тыс. Планы регулярных туристических полетов в космос вынашивают также Blue Origin и SpaceX.

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