Virgin OrbitAerospace Company in Long Beach, California
PlacesLong Beach, CaliforniaVirgin Orbit
In our first launch demo, we successfully completed all of our pre-launch procedures, captive carry flight out to the drop site, clean telemetry lock from multiple dishes, a smooth pass through the racetrack, terminal count, and a clean release from the aircraft.
We also ignited our first stage engine, NewtonThree, but experienced an anomaly after a couple seconds of stable flight, ending the mission. We'll learn more as our engineers analyze the mountain of data we collected... today.
As we said before the flight, our goals today were to work through the process of conducting a launch, learn as much as we could, and achieve ignition. We hoped we could have done more, but we accomplished those key objectives today.
The team's already hard at work digging into the data, and we're eager to hop into our next big test ASAP. Thankfully, instead of waiting until after our 1st flight to tackle our 2nd rocket, we've already completed a ton of work to get us back in the air and keep moving forward.
Check out our blog for the recap and some words from our CEO Dan Hart. ↓ https://virg.in/crM
Good morning, world! Today is a momentous occasion for the Virgin Orbit team: operations for the launch demonstration of our LauncherOne rocket are well underway. 🚀 After a promising pre-flight briefing this morning, weather remains favorable for our target launch window today.
As a reminder, we will not be livestreaming this flight. Follow us on Twitter (@Virgin_Orbit) to get near real-time updates of every major milestone as the day progresses.
