{"id":18455,"date":"2018-06-27T20:07:49","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T12:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/virgin-orbit-gets-set-to-start-flight-tests-of-its-launcherone-air-launch-system\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T20:07:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T12:07:49","slug":"virgin-orbit-gets-set-to-start-flight-tests-of-its-launcherone-air-launch-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/virgin-orbit-gets-set-to-start-flight-tests-of-its-launcherone-air-launch-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Orbit gets set to start flight tests of its LauncherOne air-launch system"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stephen
Virgin Orbit Vice President Stephen Eisele talks about his company\u2019s air-launch system during the NewSpace conference in Renton, Wash. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

RENTON, Wash. \u2014 British billionaire Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Orbit venture is getting ready to put its LauncherOne rocket system through its first flight test in a little more than a week, the company\u2019s vice president for business development said today.<\/p>\n

The first flight will be a captive-carry test, Virgin Orbit\u2019s Stephen Eisele said during the Space Frontier Foundation\u2019s NewSpace conference in Renton. That means an inactive LauncherOne rocket would be attached to a pylon built onto a converted Boeing 747 jet that\u2019s known as Cosmic Girl.<\/p>\n

Eisele said Cosmic Girl would take off from California\u2019s Mojave Air and Space Port for the practice flight, during which Virgin Orbit would check the plane\u2019s aerodynamics and test the deployment mechanism. That suggests there\u2019s a chance that the test rocket could be released over a test range.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next test after that will be the first orbital flight,\u201d Eisele said. \u201cThat will be soon after our captive-carry, after the data has been looked at.\u201d<\/p>\n

The follow-up flight will test LauncherOne\u2019s ability to put a payload into orbit. When asked about the payload, Eisele said at first that it\u2019d consist of \u201c12,000 mini-Tesla Matchbox cars\u201d \u2014 which was a joking reference to the Tesla Roadster that SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket sent to deep space in February.<\/p>\n

Once the laughter subsided, Eisele admitted, \u201cThat\u2019s not the payload.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit\u2019s flight profile calls for using Cosmic Girl as an air-launch platform to put payloads weighing as much as 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) into low Earth orbit. The company\u2019s two-stage LauncherOne rocket would be dropped from the jet at an altitude of roughly 35,000 feet, light up its engine and press onward to space.<\/p>\n

The air-launch configuration means that small satellites could be sent into a wide range of orbits, from any base of operations big enough to accommodate a 747. \u201cI won\u2019t name any names, but we\u2019ve had some countries that have asked us about launching from different spots,\u201d Eisele said.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit says the cost of the launch will be about $12 million, which is relatively cheap by spaceflight standards. This week, Seattle-based Spaceflight announced that it\u2019s partnering with Virgin Orbit for a rideshare launch that\u2019s scheduled for early 2019.<\/p>\n

Eisele said his company was already looking at schemes that could address the U.S. government\u2019s interest in rapid-response launch services. One concept calls for \u201cpre-encapsulating\u201d satellites so that they can be quickly loaded aboard a rocket for launch, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can turn around an entire launch campaign in less than a day, and honestly in probably a few hours if we had all the pieces lined up and ready to go,\u201d Eisele said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Orbit Vice President Stephen Eisele talks about his company\u2019s air-launch system during the NewSpace conference in Renton, Wash. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) RENTON, Wash. \u2014 British billionaire Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Orbit venture is getting ready to put its LauncherOne rocket system through its first flight test in a little more than a week, […]<\/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":[1550,4973,1551],"class_list":["post-18455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-launcherone","tag-new-space-conference","tag-virgin-orbit"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18455"}],"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=18455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}