posted 05-22-2020 02:56 PM               

Announcing the Window for Our Launch Demo

We are extremely excited to announce that the window for our Launch Demo mission starts on Sunday, May 24th, and extends through Monday, May 25th, 2020, with an opportunity to launch from 10 A.M. – 2 P.M. Pacific (17:00 – 21:00 GMT) each day.

That means that this weekend, our 747 carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl will prepare to take off from Mojave Air and Space Port, fly out over the Pacific ocean, and release our two-stage, orbital rocket, LauncherOne — which will then proceed to ignite its engine in mid-air for the first time.

This Launch Demo marks the apex of a five-year-long development program. On our journey to open up space for everyone we've conducted hundreds of hotfires of our engines and our rocket stages, performed two dozen test flights with our carrier aircraft, and conducted countless other tests of every bit of the system we could test on the ground.

Launching from the Earth to space is mind-bogglingly difficult. Thousands of components all need to function as planned while controlling high energy and flying at incredibly fast speeds. The vehicle's structures must be robust enough to tolerate traveling at up to 18,000 mph without disintegrating; the temperatures and pressures of its propellants can't be too high or too low; every internal valve must click open and closed in perfect synchronicity... There's a long list of factors that need to line up in order to make it all the way. We're mindful of the fact that for the governments and companies who have preceded us in developing spaceflight systems, maiden flights have statistically ended in failure about half of the time.

In the future, the goal of our launches will be to deploy satellites for a new generation of space-based services. For this Launch Demo, though, our goal is to safely learn as much as possible and prove out the LauncherOne system we've worked so hard to design, build, test and operate.

The instant our Newton Three engine ignites, we will have done something no one has ever done before — lighting an orbital-class, liquid-fueled, horizontally-launched vehicle in flight. If LauncherOne reaches an altitude of 50 miles on this mission, it will be the first time this kind of launch system has reached space.

We'll continue the mission for as long as we can. The longer LauncherOne flies, the more data we'll be able to collect. Should we defy the historical odds and become one of those exceedingly rare teams to complete a mission on first attempt, we will deploy a test payload into an orbit, take our data, and then quickly de-orbit so as not to clutter the heavens.

Regardless of the ultimate conclusion of this Launch Demo, we're excited to learn as much as we can.

We are so grateful to all of you who have followed along with us during this launch campaign — our families, our customers, and all of the others who have cheered us on, offered helpful suggestions, and celebrated the goal of bringing a new type of launch service into fruition. We look forward to sharing more on flight day. For near real-time updates follow us on Twitter (@Virgin_Orbit). See you on launch day!

posted 05-24-2020 10:17 AM               

We completed fueling of our LauncherOne rocket yesterday for our Launch Demo. Everything has been proceeding smoothly: team, aircraft, and rocket are in excellent shape. However, we have one sensor that is acting up. Out of an abundance of caution, we are offloading fuel to address.

This means we are scrubbed for today. Currently, it appears we've got a straightforward path to address this minor sensor issue and recycle quickly. The crew are already hard at work putting that plan into action. We'll provide an update on the new launch target later today.

posted 05-24-2020 08:21 PM               

Our team has worked diligently to resolve the sensor issue and recycle the system. We’re now back in the countdown, and are currently targeting another launch attempt tomorrow [May 25], with our window again open from 10 AM to 2 PM Pacific (17:00 – 21:00 UTC).

posted 05-25-2020 02:24 PM               

Confirming a smooth takeoff! Cosmic Girl is officially airborne for our first attempt at an orbital launch demo.

After taking off from Mojave, Cosmic Girl will fly due southwest to our drop point just south of the Channel Islands. Once we reach the drop point, we'll enter into a loop that we call the "racetrack" as we wait for final go/no-gos.

As we fly laps around the racetrack, the team will be checking conditions for release — making sure that the wind levels aren't too high and that we have a strong telemetry connection so we can receive data after the drop.

posted 05-25-2020 03:01 PM               

We've confirmed a clean release from the aircraft. However, the mission terminated shortly into the flight. Cosmic Girl and our flight crew are safe and returning to base.

In this first launch demo, we successfully completed all of our pre-launch procedures, captive carry flight out to the drop site, clean telemetry lock from multiple dishes, a smooth pass through the racetrack, terminal count, and a clean release from the aircraft.

LauncherOne maintained stability after release, and we ignited our first stage engine, NewtonThree. An anomaly then occurred early in first stage flight. We'll learn more as our engineers analyze the mountain of data we collected today.

As we said before the flight, our goals today were to work through the process of conducting a launch, learn as much as we could, and achieve ignition. We hoped we could have done more, but we accomplished those key objectives today.

The team's already hard at work digging into the data, and we're eager to hop into our next big test ASAP. Thankfully, instead of waiting until after our first flight to tackle our second rocket, we've already completed a ton of work to get us back in the air and keep moving forward.

Here's our next rocket, built and ready for system-level testing in our final integration area as it waits for its turn to fly to space.

posted 05-25-2020 05:23 PM               

Virgin Orbit Ignites LauncherOne Rocket During First Launch Demo, Mission Safely Terminated

Virgin Orbit, the California-based satellite launch company, conducted a launch demonstration of its innovative air-launched rocket today in the skies over the Pacific Ocean just off the California coast. The company successfully completed all of its pre-launch procedures, the captive carry flight out to the drop site, clean telemetry lock from multiple dishes, a smooth pass through the racetrack, terminal count, and a clean release. After being released from the carrier aircraft, the LauncherOne rocket successfully lighted its booster engine on cue — the first time the company had attempted an in-air ignition. An anomaly then occurred early in first stage flight, and the mission safely terminated. The carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl and all of its crew landed safely at Mojave Air and Space Port, concluding the mission.

"Our team performed their prelaunch and flight operations with incredible skill today. Test flights are instrumented to yield data and we now have a treasure trove of that. We accomplished many of the goals we set for ourselves, though not as many as we would have liked," said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. "Nevertheless, we took a big step forward today. Our engineers are already poring through the data. Our next rocket is waiting. We will learn, adjust, and begin preparing for our next test, which is coming up soon."

The company's next rocket is in final stages of integration at its Long Beach manufacturing facility, with a half-dozen other rockets for subsequent missions not far behind. Virgin Orbit's decision to begin production of multiple rockets well in advance of this test flight will enable the team to progress to the next attempt at a significantly faster pace, shortly after making any necessary modifications to the launch system.

posted 05-26-2020 11:54 PM               

Mission Recap: Our First Launch Demo

As we've delved into the data from yesterday's flight, the more we see, the happier we get. We've taken an enormous step forward as a team, and we wanted to share more about the flight, including both the many things that went well and what we know about the areas where we'll need to improve.

The context of everything that happened before the release of the rocket is incredibly important, and we'll describe that in detail below. But we won't make you wait for the part that's of most interest.

What Happened?

For about 9 seconds after drop, the flight went perfectly. Through some of the most challenging portions of our flight — release, the controlled drop, the rocket's ignition sequence, and the initial portion of guided, powered flight — every part of our system did exactly as we designed it to do. We have solid data from hundreds of channels and sensors — and in looking at those, we see performance that is well-matched to our predictions and to the extensive data we have from our models and ground tests. This means that we have proved out via flight the foundational principles of our air-launch operations, which is the key thing that separates us from our peers in the industry.

About 9 seconds after drop, something malfunctioned, causing the booster stage engine to extinguish, which in turn ended the mission. We cannot yet say conclusively what the malfunction was or what caused it, but we feel confident we have sufficient data to determine that as we continue through the rigorous investigation we've already begun. With the engine extinguished, the vehicle was no longer able to maintain controlled flight — but the rocket did not explode. It stayed within the predicted downrange corridors of our projections and our Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launch license as the vehicle fell to the ocean, posing no risk to public safety, no danger our aircrew or aircraft, and no significant environmental impact.

So, What Did This Launch Demonstration Prove?

Our Launch Demo was the world's first attempted orbital launch from Mojave Air and Space Port. One of the core capabilities we've been working to develop is the idea of a truly mobile launch infrastructure — and yesterday, we completely demonstrated that capability. The infrastructure LauncherOne requires is dramatically different from any existing launch system. For this launch demo, all we needed from the airport was a small plot of land at the end of a taxiway and access to a runway. Everything else we brought in ourselves — coming in on local roads or on our carrier aircraft itself. This low infrastructure footprint is the key to truly responsive launch and a new kind of global launch capability. And we've now proven it works.

As part of that, we have proven out our own fully transportable ground operating system. All of the trailers that we use to transport our rocket, mate it to our carrier aircraft, fuel and pressurize it, and service our payload were transported by public roads to the spaceport. Indeed, even some of our most critical ground stations for receiving telemetry were driven and parked in place. Again, this proves out our ability to quickly bring our launch capability wherever it is needed — a whole new category of launch service. Our Launch Demo was also conducted under a Commercial Space Transportation License issued by the FAA, the first time we have ever operated under such a license. Furthermore, this launch was conducted independent of the U.S. federal ranges, important national institutions that can nevertheless impart significant cost and schedule impacts on traditional launches. Apart from coordinating the airspace, our system is beholden to no one's schedules other than our customers', our own, and Mother Nature's.

One key technology that is required in order to move away from reliance on those federal ranges is an extremely robust autonomous flight safety system. While rockets traditionally rely on complex ground systems at the ranges to monitor the flight and terminate the mission if the flight ever goes out of the approved launch corridor, the new generation of launch vehicles are doing this job autonomously. Yesterday, our rocket demonstrated its capability to correctly know when we are in that corridor and when we are not — something we verify during our "cold pass" prior to dropping the rocket. Thankfully, this system was not needed during yesterday's mission, but it functioned perfectly throughout the flight.

When Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne took off from the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port just before noon yesterday, that marked our first flight with cryogenic liquid oxygen loaded into the rocket — and only our second ever flight with cryogenic materials on board. Capping an extensive campaign of ground testing, this milestone allowed us to prove out key aspects of the technology behind our linerless composite tanks, which held up to the loads of flight under the wing of a widebody jetliner and the release maneuver while carrying a full load of cryogenic oxidizer.

After a swift flight out to the drop point and a cold pass around our racetrack — the planned loop where we ensure the system autonomously detects when it enters and exits the allowable launch corridor, in addition to verifying telemetry locks — we entered into and executed a terminal count for the first time outside of dress rehearsals. A universal aerospace practice that has been made famous by countless documentaries and films, the terminal count is the final sequence of checks and polls that culminate in a rocket's ignition and flight. These countdowns always require an uncompromising level of precision, communication, and choreography — and our team pulled it off without a hiccup, hold, or scrub.

As the terminal count approached zero, our carrier aircraft went into our pitch-up maneuver, climbing steeply and achieving a flight path angle of about 30 degrees. Exactly on cue, we cleanly released the LauncherOne rocket from the pylon under the wing of our 747. As planned, the aircraft quickly banked away from the rocket. The rocket itself flew gracefully, with complete control, perfectly matching our predictions and further validating our aerodynamic models.

A few seconds after drop, the rocket trigged its ignition sequence. On our first ever attempt, we achieved in-air ignition and steady state-operation of our main stage rocket engine. The use of liquid-fueled rocket engines for air-launched vehicles is almost unheard of outside of legendary programs like the X-1 and X-15; and indeed, no one before us had ever completed such an ignition of an orbital-class rocket engine.

Once the engine ignited, our guidance and control system controlled the rocketin powered flight and steered it along its trajectory, all as predicted by our 6-DOF analysis.

Each of these items is a huge achievement for our team, and we are thrilled to have accomplished so many of them in our first launch demo mission.

What Next?

With more confidence than ever in our design philosophy and the utility of our one-of-a-kind launch system, we're determined to reach space as soon as humanly possible. Clearly, we have things to learn and something to fix, but our engineers, technicians, and flight crew have taken a moment to celebrate and are now precisely and thoroughly dissecting the data.

Meanwhile, our integration team is hard at work preparing our next rocket, and the one after that, and several more. If hardware changes are needed, we'll be able to make them quickly, thanks to our vertically integrated, state-of-the-art rocket factory. And if we decide we want to run a few experiments, well, we've got a factory full of flight hardware we can use for whatever tests we need.

It's too soon to say exactly when our next launch demo will occur. But we can confidently say that we laid the groundwork long ago for us to build on this launch demo quickly and skillfully. We're excited to take the next step on our journey to open space for good.