The Long Beach, California-based company's LauncherOne
rocket was dropped mid-air from the underside of a modified Boeing 747
nicknamed Cosmic Girl some 35,000 feet over the Pacific at 11:39am PT (1:09am
IST) before lighting its NewtonThree engine to boost itself out of Earth's
atmosphere, demonstrating its first successful trek to space.
"According to telemetry, LauncherOne has reached
orbit!" the company announced on Twitter during the test mission, dubbed
Launch Demo 2. "In both a literal and figurative sense, this is miles
beyond how far we reached in our first Launch Demo."
Roughly two hours after its Cosmic Girl carrier craft took
off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in southern California, the rocket, a
70-foot launcher tailored for carrying small satellites to space, successfully
placed 10 tiny satellites in orbit for NASA, the company said on Twitter.
The rocket, a 70-foot launcher tailored for carrying small
satellites to space, aimed to place 10 tiny satellites in orbit for NASA
roughly two hours into the mission, though Virgin Orbit had not confirmed
whether they were deployed as planned.
The successful test and clean payload deployment was a
needed double-win for Virgin Orbit, which last year failed its attempt to reach
space when LauncherOne's main engine shut down prematurely moments after
releasing from its carrier aircraft. The shortened mission generated key test
data for the company, it said.
Sunday's test also thrusts Virgin Orbit into an increasingly
competitive commercial space race, offering a unique “air-launch” method of
sending satellites to orbit alongside rivals such as Rocket Lab and Firefly
Aerospace, which have designed small-launch systems to inject smaller
satellites into orbit and meet growing demand.
Virgin executives say high-altitude launches allow
satellites to be placed in their intended orbit more efficiently and also
minimize weather-related cancellations compared to more traditional rockets
launched vertically from a ground pad.
Virgin Orbit's government services subsidiary VOX Space LLC
is selling launches using the system to the US military, with a first mission
slated for October under a $35 million US Space Force contract for three
missions.
© Reuters