Watch Virgin Orbit launch its first commercial mission
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images Virgin Orbit is in the middle of its debut commercial mission from Southern California, five months after the company first reached orbit during a January test flight. Seven satellites from three different countries are loaded onto a rocket that blasted off in midair from Virgin Orbit's modified Boeing 747 less than an hour after the plane departed the Mojave Air and Space Port.
The carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 named Cosmic Girl, took off at 9:53AM ET. Less than an hour later at 10:47AM, a 70-foot-long two-stage rocket called LauncherOne dropped from the plane's left wing and ignited its single engine to zoom toward the edge of Earth's atmosphere. The rocket is carrying the Netherlands' first military satellite, four tiny...