{"id":13622,"date":"2018-08-31T18:47:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T10:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/virgin-orbit-nears-first-test-flights-with-air-launched-rocket\/"},"modified":"2018-08-31T18:47:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T10:47:40","slug":"virgin-orbit-nears-first-test-flights-with-air-launched-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/virgin-orbit-nears-first-test-flights-with-air-launched-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Orbit nears first test flights with air-launched rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Virgin Orbit\u2019s carrier aircraft, named \u201cCosmic Girl,\u201d flies with a newly-installed rocket pylon under its left wing. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONG BEACH, California \u2014 The attachment of a mounting bracket for Virgin Orbit\u2019s smallsat launcher under the wing of a modified passenger jetliner portends the start of a series of captive carry tests with a full-scale model of the rocket, culminating in a drop of the vehicle before the first orbital launch attempt.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit is developing the LauncherOne rocket, which is set to become the first liquid-fueled orbital-class rocket to be dropped from from a carrier aircraft. The company says the first launch could happen by the end of this year, but officials have not set a target date for LauncherOne\u2019s maiden orbital test flight.<\/p>\n

But the addition of a new pylon under the left wing of Virgin Orbit\u2019s Boeing 747 carrier jet, named \u201cCosmic Girl,\u201d signals testing of the LauncherOne system is about to enter a new phase, beginning with a series of captive-carry flights of an inert launch vehicle.<\/p>\n

On operational missions, Virgin Orbit\u2019s LauncherOne rocket will be dropped from the Boeing 747 jumbo jet over the ocean before igniting its main engine and climbing into orbit. The two-stage rocket, fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, stretches around 70 feet (21 meters) long and uses parts primarily developed and manufactured in-house at Virgin Orbit\u2019s Long Beach headquarters.<\/p>\n

A spinoff of Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic, which aims to fly space tourists on suborbital trips to the edge of space, Virgin Orbit is one of many commercial companies working on smallsat launchers. One competitor, Rocket Lab, has already flown its Electron smallsat launcher twice, and others are close behind.<\/p>\n

LauncherOne is one of the few air-launched rockets of the group, and the closest new air-dropped launcher to being flight-ready. Virgin Orbit says it sells the booster to customers for around $12 million per mission, delivering up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of payload hardware to a low-altitude equatorial orbit, or up to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) to a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous polar orbit.<\/p>\n

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit\u2019s president and CEO, said the LauncherOne system is positioned to snag a significant share of the smallsat launch market. The company has more than $400 million in its backlog of launch contracts, covering dozens of missions for OneWeb \u2014 which is developing a constellation of 900 small communications satellites \u2014 NASA, the U.S. military and other commercial CubeSat and smallsat owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people with concepts of launchers,\u201d Hart said in an interview with Spaceflight Now earlier this year. \u201cThere are a lot less teams with a significant amount of hardware and going to flight. That\u2019s No. 1. We are a well-supported company that is not only not doing an experiment, but actually has a production facility here in Long Beach developing rockets. So that differentiates us further.\u201d<\/p>\n

A study last year released by Euroconsult reported more than 6,200 smallsats \u2014 spacecraft weighing up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) \u2014 are expected to be launched over the next decade, representing a market value of around $30 billion. Companies developing new light-class launchers say they will provide smallsats with a lower-cost launch option than existing rockets, which are sized to either carry up heavier payloads or bundle numerous microsats and CubeSats together on a single flight.<\/p>\n

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A test model of Virgin Orbit\u2019s LauncherOne rolls out of the company\u2019s Long Beach factory earlier this year. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CubeSats have also been deployed from the International Space Station. While that alternative carries an attractive price for smallsat owners, it limits payloads to a single type of orbit roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

To make the smallsat economy more vibrant, companies need to be able to put their satellites in a range of orbits. Analysts say that day will come when dedicated light launchers come to market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pent-up need,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of thirst for launch, and we\u2019ll have a bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of our full interview with Dan Hart. Become a member today and support our coverage.<\/h6>\n
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Virgin Orbit builds more than 90 percent of LauncherOne at its plant adjacent to Long Beach Airport, according to Will Pomerantz, vice president of special projects at the company. That vertical integration, coupled with an emphasis on simplicity and 3D printing, will make LauncherOne viable in the competitive commercial smallsat launch market, company officials said.<\/p>\n

The air-launched concept also makes Virgin Orbit capable of putting up satellites into different types of orbits, ranging from polar to equatorial inclinations. LauncherOne\u2019s first test flight will follow a southerly heading over the Pacific Ocean off of Southern California, following takeoff from Mojave Air and Space Port.<\/p>\n

Future missions, beginning with a multi-satellite launch for the U.S. military\u2019s Space Test Program next year, will be staged from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Virgin Orbit last month announced plans to base missions out of Cornwall Airport Newquay in southwest England.<\/p>\n

The company says it is also assessing launch operations at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport in Hawaii and the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s illustration of LauncherOne underneath Virgin Orbit\u2019s \u201cCosmic Girl\u201d carrier jet. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCommercial is really leading the charge in small satellites,\u201d said Hart, a former Boeing executive and a veteran of the Delta launch team. \u201cGovernment has gotten involved, which is great to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re seeing more momentum building as the government is coming to a realization that there are all these platforms and launch systems that are becoming available to them, which is a very different model than we saw some 40 years ago, where government really plowed the path, developed the technology, and eventually commercial launch started to come about in the \u201980s and early \u201990s,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThis is really very strongly driven by commercial entrepreneurs, and a fair amount of investment that\u2019s coming in, which puts the government community in a great position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buoyed by hundreds of millions of dollars from Branson and Abu Dhabi\u2019s Aabar Investments, Virgin Orbit has started up a factory adjacent to Long Beach Airport, built test stands near Mojave \u2014 home to Virgin Galactic \u2014 and now has parts of multiple rockets under construction.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit\u2019s relationship with Branson also allowed the burgeoning launch company to acquire LauncherOne\u2019s carrier aircraft from Virgin Atlantic. Ground crews have stripped around 30 tons of weight and passenger seats from the airplane to allow it to haul LauncherOne \u2014 which weighs 57,000 pounds (nearly 26 metric tons) fully fueled \u2014 to an altitude of 35,000 feet (10.7 kilometers) to begin its journey into orbit.<\/p>\n

LauncherOne is designed as an expendable rocket, but Virgin Orbit views the carrier plane mothership as part of the overall launch system. The air-dropped satellite launcher concept has its roots in Virgin Galactic, which at first considered lofting the rocket under the WhiteKnightTwo carrier jet used by the SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at where we are right now, No. 1, we have the most reusable initial stage that anybody has ever thought of having, a Boeing 747, which has been the workhorse in aeronautics for ages now,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThat\u2019s point No. 1 \u2014 very reusable and very flexible. We\u2019re on an operational cadence driven by a 747, not a launch pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. 2, our focus has been to drive the cost down through advanced manufacturing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s to make as simple of a rocket as possible driven by manufacturing. It\u2019ll be a horse race a little bit over what kinds of reusability approaches come about, and how we innovate and what kind of manufacturing innovations we find, and we\u2019re always going to pick the most efficient way to operate for our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Three hook interfaces will connect LauncherOne to the pylon under \u201cCosmic Girl\u2019s\u201d left wing. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Simplicity is key to Virgin Orbit\u2019s ethos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to build the biggest rocket, the highest-thrust rocket, the fastest rocket,\u201d said Will Pomerantz, Virgin Orbit\u2019s vice president of special projects, as Spaceflight Now toured the company\u2019s Long Beach factory in May. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build the most affordable and reliable rocket that we think is commercially viable in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit\u2019s engineers devised a rocket made entirely of carbon composite structures, using a single engine on its first stage and another engine, similar to the booster\u2019s powerplant, on the upper stage.<\/p>\n

The NewtonThree engine on the first stage will generate 73,500 pounds of thrust in vacuum, firing for around three minutes on each mission. The second stage\u2019s NewtonFour engine will ramp up to 5,000 pounds of thrust, and can be reignited in space to maneuver into different orbits.<\/p>\n

Both engines have been test-fired for years, and the finish line in the NewtonThree and NewtonFour development campaign is in sight for Virgin Orbit.<\/p>\n

One major piece of the rocket Virgin Orbit outsourced was the engine turbopumps, which are produced by Barber-Nichols, the same company that designed the turbopump for SpaceX\u2019s Merlin rocket engine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe engines were the first part of the program that we started, well before we were thinking about avionics and tanks,\u201d Pomerantz said.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit says it can build 24 rockets per year out of the Long Beach plant, thanks to new manufacturing techniques made possible with 3D printing. A massive hybrid manufacturing tool the size of a truck produces full-scale thrust chambers for the NewtonThree engine.<\/p>\n

Parts manufactured by the hybrid tool, which can churn out components using 3D printing or with traditional \u201csubtractive\u201d processes, have been proven on Virgin Orbit\u2019s test stands in the Mojave Desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, to manufacture a NewtonThree engine using traditional subtractive manufacturing is about 10 months,\u201d Pomerantz said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to build 24 rockets per year. You can do that with one part that takes 10 months, but it\u2019s not ideal. You\u2019d have to build a bunch of them parallel. You\u2019d have to start in advance. There are cash flow implications to that. There are risk implications to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

New machining techniques could cut the time to build a rocket engine from 10 months to a few weeks, according to Pomerantz. Engineers can enter specifications for a part, and let the machine\u2019s computer do the rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the big revolutions,\u201d Pomerantz said. \u201cIn my opinion, 3D printing has not yet made a very major impact on aerospace. A lot of people have (made) a bracket or widget or something modest, but nobody has flown a critical system yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s concept of Virgin Orbit\u2019s LauncherOne system. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a separate part of the factory in Long Beach, engineers examine circuit boards that will go into computers responsible for overseeing the performance of LauncherOne\u2019s engines, separation systems, destruct mechanism, and other vital functions.<\/p>\n

Miniaturization is the mantra here.<\/p>\n

Like any rocket, LauncherOne will need avionics and computers to safely, and automatically, guide it into orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same number of boards everyone else would have, but every time we shrink a big box from desktop computer-sized to the size of an iPad, that\u2019s 10 pounds that we\u2019re saving,\u201d Pomerantz said. \u201cThat starts to add up on a smaller vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pomerantz said Virgin Orbit has drawn on engineering talent from computer companies to marry that know-how with the aerospace industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re looking for companies who have spent a lot making computers miniaturized \u2026 it\u2019s Samsung, it\u2019s Apple,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

LauncherOne will use an autonomous safety system, which would be activated to terminate a mission if it flew off course. SpaceX is already flying such a destruct mechanism on its Falcon family of rockets, eliminating the need for a range safety officer to send a flight termination command.<\/p>\n

That streamlines LauncherOne\u2019s range requirements, permitting it to fly from a barebones spaceport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what allows us to fully take advantage of the flexibility that comes with the airplane,\u201d Pomerantz said. \u201cWe have found that one of our main selling points for our customers is the flexibility to launch from a variety of locations to hit different inclinations and orbital parameters. So it\u2019s nice to say we can fly from Mojave today, or from the SLF (Kennedy Space Center\u2019s Shuttle Landing Facility) tomorrow, and from other places.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have to go spend a couple of years working on FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) licensing, then that\u2019s just a hollow talking point. We\u2019d like for that to be very real.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Virgin Orbit president and CEO Dan Hart (right) leads GomSpace CEO Niels Buus on a tour in Long Beach. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LauncherOne will employ a similar air-launch concept as Northrop Grumman\u2019s Pegasus rocket, which first flew in 1990. Pegasus rockets, originally developed by Orbital Sciences, have launched on 43 orbital missions to date, with the 44th Pegasus flight carrying a satellite scheduled in early October.<\/p>\n

But a Pegasus mission is priced at more than $50 million \u2014 out of reach for commercial smallsat owners \u2014 and NASA has been the only Pegasus customer in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPegasus was a very innovative system,\u201d Hart said. \u201cIt definitely plowed ground that was very valuable for the whole industry. It arrived at a time that was probably a little early for the kind of capability that small satellites can bring forward. Now, it\u2019s a different era.\u201d<\/p>\n

LauncherOne will soon take to the skies for the first time, beginning with a series of captive-carry tests of an atmospheric test vehicle under Cosmic Girl\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n

Since the installation of the pylon, the rocket\u2019s carrier plane has conducted several flights out of Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California, according to online aircraft tracking websites.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit\u2019s pilots, led by Kelly Latimer, will practice flying the 747 jumbo jet with the rocket on-board, checking out the airplane\u2019s aerodynamic and handling qualities. Latimer is a former Air Force combat pilot, and she later served as a test pilot for NASA and Boeing before joining Virgin.<\/p>\n

The captive-carry testing will culminate in a drop of the LauncherOne test rocket, filled with water instead of propellant to simulate the weight of a fully-fueled booster. Latimer\u2019s flying team and a network of instrumentation will evaluate the airplane\u2019s response to the rocket\u2019s release, and sensors aboard the test booster will collect data as it free falls back to Earth.<\/p>\n

Hart said flight testing with LauncherOne\u2019s mothership and the completion of engine testing were two of his top priorities.<\/p>\n

In an email update Friday, Virgin Orbit detailed some of its recent propulsion testing milestones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe LauncherOne program made some huge gains in August, as we conducted some of our most serious and ambitious tests yet, highlighted by a series of hotfires of a fully integrated upper stage,\u201d the company said. \u201cFor years, we\u2019ve been testing flight-like engines, flight-like tanks, and flight-like avionics and software \u2014 but now, all those elements are working together in a single integrated test.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut work on our other test stands hasn\u2019t stopped! We\u2019re busier than ever with high fidelity tests, including a full simulated mission for our upper stage engine. We pushed NewtonFour, our flight avionics and flight software to the limit \u2014 first running a hotfire that lasted more than six minutes (367 seconds, to be exact), followed by a half-hour breather before the engine automatically re-ignited for another 37-second \u2018circularization\u2019 burn.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the aircraft side, the upcoming drop test will be a major step leading to the rocket\u2019s inaugural orbital launch, Hart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the final verification that all the forces and the aerodynamics are well understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Orbit\u2019s carrier aircraft, named \u201cCosmic Girl,\u201d flies with a newly-installed rocket pylon under its left wing. Credit: Virgin Orbit LONG BEACH, California \u2014 The attachment of a mounting bracket for Virgin Orbit\u2019s smallsat launcher under the wing of a modified passenger jetliner portends the start of a series of captive carry tests with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1931,291,1932,1608,2147,25,1550,2212],"class_list":["post-13622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-california","tag-commercial-space","tag-cosmic-girl","tag-cubesats","tag-dan-hart","tag-launch","tag-launcherone","tag-mojave-air-and-space-port"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}