LauncherOne - Virgin Galactic's satellite launching rocket

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Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 3 ч. назад

Our Response to COVID-19 ↓

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https://virginorbit.com/oita-partners-with-virgin-orbit-to-establish-first-horizontal-spaceport-in-asia/

Oita Partners with Virgin Orbit to Establish First Horizontal Spaceport in Asia
APRIL 2, 2020

Oita Prefecture to Foster Local NewSpace Industry Following Collaboration with Virgin Orbit

Oita, Japan/Long Beach, California — April 2, 2020 — Virgin Orbit, the California-based small satellite launch company, has announced a new partnership with Oita Prefecture to bring horizontal launch to Japan. With the support of regional partners ANA Holdings Inc. and the Space Port Japan Association, Virgin Orbit has identified Oita Airport as its preferred pilot launch site — yet another addition to the company's growing global network of horizontal launch sites — in pursuit of a mission to space from Japan as early as 2022.

Virgin Orbit and Oita Prefecture have agreed to commence a joint technical study to facilitate development of the future spaceport.

Oita Prefecture is widely recognized in Japan as not only a top-ranked tourist destination, but also as a hub for numerous high-tech ecosystems, including the steel, petrochemical, semiconductor, and automobile industries. The Oita Prefectural Government now has ambitions to extend that leadership into the space domain.



Photo Credit: Oita Prefecture

"We are eager to host the first horizontal takeoff and landing spaceport in Japan. We are also honored to be able to collaborate with brave technology companies solving global-level problems through their small satellites," said Katsusada Hirose, Governor for the Oita Prefectural Government. "We hope to foster a cluster of space industry in our prefecture, starting with our collaboration with Virgin Orbit."

"As the global use of smaller satellites and related launch activities are expected to ramp up rapidly in the coming years, a flexible domestic launch capability becomes a crucial factor. It's a key element in ensuring the availability and responsiveness of launch — a core enabler for the growing space economy," said Dan Hart, CEO for Virgin Orbit. "As Japan looks to establish a regional launch hub for Asia, we're very excited to work alongside Oita to enable launch operations for space ventures, stimulate the local economy, and facilitate the growth of Japan's broader space ecosystem."

LauncherOne, Virgin Orbit's uniquely mobile launch system, will leverage sites around the world like Oita to provide flexible and responsive flights to space for a broad variety of customers. Most recently, the UK Space Agency announced a multi-million dollar grant to facilitate horizontal launches from Spaceport Cornwall, and in April 2019, Virgin Orbit revealed that it would also conduct launches from Andersen Air Force Base on the Pacific island of Guam. Even now, Virgin Orbit is working closely with multiple governments and international organizations interested in establishing launch capabilities closer to home.

After successfully demonstrating all major vehicle assemblies and completing an extensive flight test program, the Virgin Orbit team is in the midst of final preparations for an orbital launch demonstration expected soon.

ABOUT VIRGIN ORBIT

Virgin Orbit builds and operates the most flexible and responsive satellite launcher ever invented: LauncherOne, a dedicated launch service for commercial and government-built small satellites. LauncherOne rockets are designed and manufactured in Long Beach, California, and will be air-launched from our modified 747-400 carrier aircraft – allowing us to operate from locations all over the world in order to best serve each customer's needs. Virgin Orbit's systems are currently in an advanced stage of testing, with initial orbital launches expected soon. To learn more or to apply to join Virgin Orbit's talented and growing team, visit virginorbit.com.

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ABOUT ANA

Following the "Inspiration of Japan" high quality of service, ANA has been awarded the respected 5-Star rating every year since 2013 from SKYTRAX. ANA is the only Japanese airline to win this prestigious designation seven years in a row. Additionally, ANA has been recognized by Air Transport World as "Airline of the Year" three times in the past 10 years — 2007, 2013 and 2018, becoming one of the few airlines to win this prestigious award multiple times.

ANA was founded in 1952 with two helicopters and has become the largest airline in Japan, as well as one of the most significant airlines in Asia, operating 77 international routes and 118 domestic routes. ANA offers a unique dual hub model which enables passengers to travel to Tokyo and connect through the two airports in the metropolitan Tokyo, Narita and Haneda, to various destinations throughout Japan, and also offers same day connections between various North American, Asian and Chinese cities.

ANA has been a member of Star Alliance since 1999 and has joint venture partnerships with United Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines.

In addition to the full service and award-winning record of ANA, the ANA Group's subsidiary Peach Aviation Limited is the leading LCC in Japan, and has expanded following the integration of Vanilla Air Inc. in late 2019. The ANA Group carried 54.4 million passengers in FY2018, has approximately 43,000 employees and a fleet of 260 aircraft. ANA is a proud launch customer and the biggest operator of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. For more information, please refer to the following link: https://www.ana.co.jp/group/en/

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https://3dnews.ru/1007537

Для испытаний запусков спутников с самолёта Virgin Orbit выбрала Японию
04.04.2020 15:54,    Геннадий Детинич                                              
На днях компания Virgin Orbit сообщила, что испытательным полигоном для первых запусков в космос спутников с самолёта выбран аэропорт города Оита в Японии (остров Косю). Это может стать разочарованием для правительства Великобритании, которое вкладывает в этот проект деньги с расчётом создать национальную систему запуска спутников на базе аэропорта в графстве Корнуолл.



Аэропорт в Оита выбран компанией Virgin Orbit с прицелом на создание центра воздушных запусков спутников (микроспутников) в Юго-Восточной Азии. Очевидно, там будет больше денег, чем в «старой доброй Англии». В то же время система «воздушный старт» подразумевает гибкий подход к месту запуска спутников, поскольку стартовая площадка в виде модифицированного лайнера Boeing 747-400 «Cosmic Girl» может быть переброшена в условно любую точку мира.


Партнёрами Virgin Orbit в аэропорту Оита станут местные компании, входящие в ANA Holdings и ассоциация Space Port Japan Association. Предполагается, что сотрудничество приведёт к появлению интегрированной вместе с гражданскими авиационными службами структуре, которая создаст новые рынки, связанные с расширением спроса на микроспутники. Похоже, скоро каждая уважающая себя компания жить не сможет без своего спутника.


Что касается первых запусков ракеты носителя LauncherOne с борта Boeing 747-400, то он ожидается в 2022 году. В настоящий момент, как сообщает компания, «проект находится на развитой стадии испытаний, и в ближайшее время ожидаются первые орбитальные пуски».

Аэропорт в городе Оита (Япония)

Самолёт Boeing 747-400 «Cosmic Girl» должен поднимать 21-метровый ракетоноситель LauncherOne с полезным грузом на борту на высоту свыше 9 км, после чего ракета будет отделяться, запускать собственный двигатель и выходить в космос. Подобная схема обещает удешевить вывод на орбиту небольших спутников.

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Лавры Пегаса не дают коммерсам покоя. В конце концов каждый должен иметь право получить по лбу граблями. 

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https://virginorbit.com/up-next-our-final-development-test/

Up Next: Our Final Development Test

APRIL 10, 2020

After five years of hard work, our team is now ready to conduct the final test of our development program and the last major step prior to our Launch Demo. In the very near future, we will conduct a cryogenic captive carry flight with our first orbital rocket. This test will be a complete, end-to-end launch rehearsal that exercises all of our ground operations; our mission control; all of our communications systems and protocols; all of our range assets; and our carrier aircraft's takeoff, flyout, pull-up maneuver, and return-to-base operations.

Before we tell you a bit more about the test, let's start with a recap — because so much is happening in the world that March already feels like a million years ago.

In the early days of 2020, we wrapped up an intense campaign of in situ checkouts and launch rehearsals on our first orbital rocket. With that work completed, we moved our rocket off of a custom-built test stand and moved it to meet the rest of our launch system. We parked at the end of the primary taxiway at the Mojave Air and Space Port, just feet away fr om where we will begin our Launch Demo soon.

That's the entire footprint of our mobile infrastructure in one photograph — a far cry from most traditional, ground-launched systems, and a big reason why we'll soon be able to operate the most flexible, most responsive orbital launch service in the world.

With our full system in place — with the MegaZord united, as we jokingly say — we began running through another huge batch of fueling operations, full-team mission simulations, telemetry hand-off exercises, devilishly designed "mayhem" scenarios designed to push our team to the limits, and several rounds of important readiness reviews. None of it was terribly flashy, but it's the kind of work that is sensible to do before debuting a brand new launch system.

And then, a global pandemic happened.

Like everyone else, COVID-19 is changing our lives and dominating our thoughts. Even as an essential business requested to remain open, we've made major changes to our plans, our work spaces, our procedures, and our schedules in order to keep our teammates safe and to help flatten the curve. We've also devoted a great deal of effort to answering the medical community's call for a simpler, faster-to-produce ventilator. But through it all, we've continued the push towards our primary mission: developing the world's most flexible and responsive launch system.

As the pandemic reached our home in California, we sent all of our staff home with full pay, giving them a week to prepare for the many changes that were to come for them and their families — and giving ourselves all the time we needed to design an entirely new way of working. Ours is an industry accustomed to dealing with hazards and to thinking thoroughly and intentionally about how to keep our people safe. We put that knowledge and training to good use here.

We reconfigured our Mission Control. We re-wrote procedures for our technicians on the shop floor and at the test site in order to meet social distancing requirements. We were already accustomed to using Personal Protective Equipment during many of our operations — but now we are ramping up our standards to match the latest guidelines from the CDC and other leading medical experts. And of course, we are spending extra time regularly sterilizing every square inch of our manufacturing facility, constantly educating our staff, and much more.

With a robust plan for safe operations in place, we began bringing essential teammates back on site — but continue to have as much as 90% of our staff working remotely.

With the steady progress of our remote work and with a few weeks of getting used to our new COVID-19 accommodations, we are now ready for the final development test of our launch program: a cryogenic captive carry flight.

Very soon, you'll see Cosmic Girl and a fully loaded LauncherOne lift off from the main runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port, carrying our first orbital rocket for the most complete capstone test of our entire pre-launch process yet.

We've conducted captive carry tests in the past, including several with a fully loaded rocket. But for those tests, our tanks were full of water — which is great for testing weight and balance, but has one key difference from what'll be in the tanks during a launch: it's more than 300°F (185°C) warmer. Cryogenic liquids have some important differences both in how they interact with the hardware and in how they are handled by our crew. All the more reason to be extremely thorough in kicking the proverbial tires before we're ready to launch.

So, for this end-to-end rehearsal, we'll have liquid nitrogen — which is very similar in temperature to liquid oxygen, but which would pose less of a risk in case anything were to go wrong despite all of our planning — in our LOX tanks for both stages.

We've put in the work through hardware and software tests, loading and unloading sequences, and crew training rehearsals. We've gone through our test readiness process and are now poised to start operations soon. When the time comes, we will be very, very pleased to check the box on this final test of our development program.

Once that's done, we'll be nearly ready for the big kahuna, our Launch Demo. Of course, we'll first pore over the data from this captive carry flight; and we'll run through a few last rehearsals, giving the team a few additional chances to practice their jobs with our new COVID-19 procedures in place. But the Launch Demo will be squarely in our sights.

Our team is laser-focused and working methodically. We're doing so with the full knowledge of the statistics behind maiden voyages of rockets. All of us in aerospace know that about half of all rockets fail on their first launch attempt. Each team of intrepid rocketeers knows that in spite of all of our hard work we can never rule out that possibility. But we are also armed with the confidence that this pursuit is worth the struggle to overcome its inherent challenges, and comforted by the knowledge that we'll learn so much about how our system operates. We'll build on the good and figure out wh ere improvements are needed and why. We are doing our level best to make the day a big success — and preparing for absolutely every scenario.

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Jack Beyer‏ @thejackbeyer 23 ч. назад

Looks like @Virgin_Orbit's cryogenic captive carry test of their Launcher One rocket could occur as early as this morning. I'm headed to Mojave Air and Spaceport now to try and catch Cosmic Girl's takeoff. @NASASpaceflight






20 ч. назад

It's a beautiful day for flight test here at Mojave Air and Spaceport. Unfortunately Cosmic Girl's cabin door is open and it's still surrounded by ground support equipment. Something tells me we're scrubbed for the day. @NASASpaceflight – Mojave Air and Space Port

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Jack Beyer‏ @thejackbeyer 49 мин. назад

Good morning from Mojave Air and Space Port! You're looking at @Virgin_Orbit's 747 Cosmic Girl, with what appears to be a fueled or fueling Launcher One rocket slung under the wing. The plan today is likely to fuel the rocket and then conduct a short test flight. @NASASpaceflight

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 Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 36 мин. назад

Good morning fr om Mojave, wh ere our team is preparing for an end-to-end, capstone launch rehearsal of LauncherOne — the final test of our development program.




38 мин. назад

We've been pushing hard to prepare for this moment — rehearsing fueling operations, testing our telemetry hand-offs, simulating full-team missions, and all the other kind of work that needs to be done before debuting a new rocket.


17 мин. назад

Our ground ops team completed fuel (RP-1) loading last night and began loading LN2 a little over an hour ago. We're watching weather closely; currently, it looks good for our target takeoff time around 11 AM.

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 Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 2 мин. назад

LN2 has been fully loaded and the flight crew is onboard. Off to a smooth start today.

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 Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 11 мин. назад

Alrighty, here we go! Cosmic Girl, with LauncherOne underwing, has taken off from the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port. We're flying out to what will be the drop point for our upcoming Launch Demo.

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Уведомление о закрываемой для проведения тестового полёта зоне (зона условного сброса РН)

NOTAMs

KZLA

04/017 (A0694/20) - AIRSPACE VIRGIN ORBIT STNR ALT RESERVATION WI AN
AREA DEFINED AS
3400N11950W TO 3255N11930W TO 3245N12030W TO 3400N12040W TO POINT OF ORIGIN FL290-FL400.
12 APR 17:30 2020 UNTIL 12 APR 21:00 2020.
CREATED: 09 APR 22:14 2020

04/018 (A0695/20) - AIRSPACE VIRGIN ORBIT STNR ALT RESERVATION WI AN
AREA DEFINED AS
3400N11950W TO 3255N11930W TO 3245N12030W TO 3400N12040W TO POINT OF ORIGIN FL290-FL400.
13 APR 17:30 2020 UNTIL 13 APR 21:00 2020.
CREATED: 09 APR 22:22 2020

Полёт разрешен 12 и 13 апреля с 17:30 до 21:00 UTC

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Jack Beyer‏ @thejackbeyer 8 мин. назад

There you have it! @Virgin_Orbit's Cosmic Girl took off with a fueled Launcher One rocket just after 11am this morning for a cryogenic captive carry test. @NASASpaceflight

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 Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 19 сек. назад

Today's test is going well! We are verifying all of our systems and working our way through our procedures. All systems are healthy and conditions are nominal.

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 Jack Beyer‏ @thejackbeyer 12 мин. назад

Here's video from my vantage point of Cosmic Girl's takeoff today. Absolutely beautiful. @Virgin_Orbit

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Пуск несуществующей ракеты? 

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Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 17 мин. назад

Beautiful LN2 liftoff out in the Mojave desert of @Virgin_Orbit's Cosmic Girl carrying the Launcher One rocket! The team has been working super hard for this moment.

for @SuperclusterHQ





Supercluster‏ @SuperclusterHQ 10 мин. назад

Liftoff! @Virgin_Orbit's 747 'Cosmic Girl' takes flight over the Mojave desert with their LauncherOne rocket.

This is company's final test in their development program.

: @w00ki33 for Supercluster

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 Jonathan McDowell‏ @planet4589 6 мин. назад

Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl launch plane rehearsing the drop pattern for the planned Launcher One flight  - from FlightRadar24

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 Virgin Orbit @Virgin_Orbit 2 мин. назад

We've successfully completed our pull-up maneuver and simulated drop. Everything has looked good thus far on this capstone launch rehearsal. Cosmic Girl heading back to base.

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 Virgin Orbit‏ @Virgin_Orbit 10 мин. назад

Our flying launch pad has returned to base and our crew are all smiles. We're putting the finishing touches on today's successful cryogenic captive carry flight.

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Virgin Orbit @Virgin_Orbit 11 мин. назад

Beautiful pull-up maneuver today!

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