Virgin Orbit confirms that LauncherOne has reached orbit

https://twitter.com/Virgin_Orbit/status/1350892947160485889

by _Microft • 6 years ago

108 35 6 years ago

tectonic4• 6 years ago

This is great news, congratulations to everyone on the team!

We'll cover this in more detail in this week's Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com), but the gist is that Virgin Orbit now joins SpaceX and Rocket Lab in the elite club of NewSpace startups that have actually made it to orbit. (Also in this club, albeit likely with significant Chinese military tech transfer, are iSpace and Galactic Energy. And we're ignoring "old space" companies like Arianespace, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and ULA.)

tectonic4• 6 years ago

And soon to join will be Astra, who made it very close to orbit recently.

someperson3• 6 years ago

Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Astra and SpaceX rideshare are all able to launch 150-500kg into orbit for a few million dollars.

It's hard to see how the market can support so many small launch providers. That's a lot of options for what has been relatively small market. Rocket Lab's Peter Beck has said some of these companies are propped up by the favorable fundraising environment and to expect industry consolidation when the money runs out.

Rocket Lab is obviously in a great financial position with their high launch cadence and improving re-usability technology. And SpaceX is of course in a league of their own.

someperson3• 6 years ago

It's worth noting I-Space [1] and Galactic Energy [2] both mostly use solid fuel, with Galactic Energy's Ceres-1 continuing tradition with a highly-toxic hydrazine stage. Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies.

Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and SpaceX Falcon use keralox (re-usable, with some coking issues), and Blue Origin and SpaceX Raptor uses methalox (cleanly re-usable).

All those providers (except Virgin as far as I know) are pursuing re-usability and SpaceX and Rocket Lab are succeeding at recovering the first stage (with SpaceX far ahead at actually re-using them).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Space_(Chinese_company)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy

baybal22• 6 years ago

Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies.

Do they even need to?

Material cost of solid fuel ICBMs go right into few megabucks each.

sebmellen2• 6 years ago

I'm really thrilled to see renewed interest in space, and I hope that we will end up with moon bases and Mars colonies in the near future... Now, the challenge is not to end up with corporate hegemony.

Reminds me of that infamous Fight Club quote:

When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks. [0]

That aside, does Virgin Orbit have anything to do with Virgin Galactic? I vaguely remember Chamath talking about Virgin Galactic's commercial market opportunities when shilling his SPAC, but nothing directly about Virgin Orbit.

[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=Va2K__8rV3o

imustbeevil• 6 years ago

Based on the wikipedia page it looks like Virgin Orbit is it's own separate private company held by the Virgin Group. It was spun off of Galactic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit

Now Virgin Galactic officials have decided to break off the satellite launcher program and make it its own company. Called Virgin Orbit, the California-based firm is seeking to enter a market that has attracted a lot of interest in recent years as satellites, once huge and expensive, have shrunk in size and cost.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/02...

sebmellen2• 6 years ago

Hmm, interesting. I wonder why they spun it off — doesn't seem to make sense from Galactic's POV. Leadership dispute?

tectonic4• 6 years ago

They’re separate entities with very different missions.

lrossi• 6 years ago

Amazing!

I’m very happy for them. The more competition we have in this space, the better. (pardon the pun)

danbst• 6 years ago

LauncherOne costs $12 millions per launch and delivers 300 kg, which means $40k/kg. Compared to $4k/kg of Falcon9, this is... uhm... They definitely gotta optimize things

tectonic4• 6 years ago

The difference is that you can “afford” to buy the whole launch and get to your desired orbit instead of doing a ride share and ending up wherever the main payload was headed.

bobthebuilders• 6 years ago

I don't think they're competitive with Rocket Lab, which is half the price and could be even lower.

usrusr• 6 years ago

Makes me wonder if there could be a business opportunity in providing "the model T" of ion drives for rideshare payloads if that doesn't already exist.

someperson3• 6 years ago

SpaceX, Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit have now all reached orbit.

But Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin hasn't yet. We'll see if their Gradatim Ferociter (Step by Step, Ferociously) approach pays off in the longer term.

dustinls2• 6 years ago

Bezos is just letting everyone else spend money on the R&D and he'll copy whatever works best

solarkraft• 6 years ago

He's spending 1B$/year and BO's approaches are reasonably novel.

You're probably thinking of Amazon's house brand approach, which is funny to imagine in this context.

ArtWomb• 6 years ago

Congrats! The student CubeSat missions are impressive. Low risk, minimal footprint. But high potential for discovery.

Electrodynamic tether project from Michigan especially caught my eye. A thin wire connecting two spacecraft in orbit. When electrified, the current interacts with the Earth's magnetic field to create propellant-free propulsion ;)

http://clasp-research.engin.umich.edu/groups/s3fl/mitee/abou...

jeffbee• 6 years ago

If this launcher can put a metric ton into orbit, why does Virgin Galactic and the White Knight launch platform, which can only boost 100kg to orbit, need to exist at all?

mkl• 6 years ago

I'm not sure it does anymore? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LauncherOne, White Knight Two was originally proposed to launch LauncherOne rockets, but then in 2015 this was changed to a 747, to carry a heavier rocket. The White Knight Two derivative by Stratolaunch is much bigger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_Stratolaunch).

ilaksh• 6 years ago

Seems like they would want to launch higher than 35000 if they can since that would require less fuel for the rocket which seems like that is at least part of the point.

m4rtink5• 6 years ago

IIRC higher launching aircraft altitude and velocity don't help that much (at least in what you can achieve with a non-exotic carrier aircraft).

The main benefit is huge flexibility in launch azimuth and conditions (as you can just fly the plane to the best spot to reach the target orbit) and the lack of upkeep for a spaceport. You might even be able to work around bad weather by having multiple drop-zones ready.

Virgin Orbit confirms that LauncherOne has reached orbit

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