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January 18, 2021
by John Antczak
Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reached space on Sunday, eight months after the first demonstration flight of its air-launched missile system failed.
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A 21.34 meter long LauncherOne rocket was fired from under the wing of a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft off the coast of Southern California, detonated shortly afterwards and flew into space.
The two-stage rocket carried a group of very small satellites , known as CubeSats, designed and built as part of a NASA educational program with U.S. universities.
The launch came after the Boeing 747-400 left Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles took off and flew across the Pacific to a drop point beyond the Channel Islands.
« Telemetry says LauncherOne has reached orbit! » Virgin Orbit later tweeted. “Everyone on the team who is not currently in mission control is absolutely insane.”
The top stage of the rocket coasted down for a while, re-ignited to recirculate orbit, and then deployed the nine CubeSats a.
Virgin Orbit, headquartered in Long Beach, Calif., is part of a wave of companies targeting the launch market for increasingly powerful small satellites that can be anything from a toaster to a household refrigerator in size.
Rocket Lab, also based in Long Beach, has deployed 96 payloads in 17 launches of its electron rocket from a location in New Zealand. Another missile was about to launch on Sunday.
Virgin Orbit touts the flexibility of its ability to begin its missions with airports around the world.
The missile was released and detonated, but only flew briefly electrified before it stopped thrusting. The lost payload was just a test satellite.
The company later said an investigation revealed that a high pressure line carrying cryogenic liquid oxygen to the first stage combustor had been breached.
Virgin Orbit is separate from Virgin Galactic, the Branson-founded company that carries passengers on suborbital hops where they experience the sensations and sights of space travel.
Virgin Galactic expects to begin commercial operations in southern New Mexico this year.
© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.
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Ref: https://phys.org