Virgin Orbit suddenly has a viable rocket, so what comes next?

Enlarge / Cosmic Girl takes off with the LauncherOne vehicle on Wednesday. (credit: Virgin Orbit)

Virgin Orbit demonstrated on Wednesday morning that its first spaceflight in January was no fluke.

The company's Cosmic Girl aircraft took off from Mojave Air and Space Port about an hour after sunrise Wednesday and flew about 200 km off the California coast, southwest of Los Angeles. The 747 carrier aircraft then dropped the LauncherOne rocket, which proceeded to ignite, reorient itself upward, and blast into orbit. Eventually, the rocket deployed seven small satellites into an orbit about 500 km above the planet.

This was Virgin Orbit's third launch in about 13 months. The rocket's first test flight failed in late May 2020, several seconds after ignition, due to a break in a liquid-oxygen line. But the second test flight this past January was successful, resulting in the deployment of 10 CubeSats for NASA. Now, the rocket has succeeded again. Suddenly, Virgin Orbit finds itself with a viable rocket.

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