Gone in 9 seconds: Virgin Orbit's maiden rocket flight went perfectly until it didn't Wannabe satellite flinger Virgin Orbit has shared more detail on what went wrong and right in the very brief maiden flight of LauncherOne. LauncherOne is an intriguing beast, consisting of a rocket slung beneath the wing of one of Virgin Orbit boss Richard Branson's old Boeing 747s. Dropped from around 35,000 feet, the two- …
As per the article, only solid fuel rockets launched this way so far. The other benefit is being able to launch from pretty much anywhere, anytime and likely above any inclement weather, to suit the requirements of the customer and not bother with all that pesky and expensive ground-based infrastructure.
> The other benefit is being able to launch from pretty much anywhere, anytime and likely above any inclement weather, to suit the requirements of the customer
Another benefit is that your satellite doesn't ever have to go onto US soil so won't be taken apart and every little detail copied, with or without your consent.
Why bother? Every man and his dog can do that.
Putting 500kg into orbit for, I think, $12 million is the trick. SpaceX charges about $90 million a launch for about 10 tonnes into LEO. Ride-shares are possible but the resulting orbits for multi-satellite launches are limited to wherever SpaceX wants to go today. If it's not the orbit that's wanted or close enough for a limited amount of adjustment after LEO is achieved then tough.
They can also take off from potentially any airport, and the plane can carry the rocket a considerable distance before actually launching, so you can launch into any conceivable orbit rather than being limited to which orbits are reachable from SpaceX's launch sites. This allows, say, a UK-based company who wants to launch into a polar orbit to get Virgin to take off from Heathrow, carry the vehicle out over the Atlantic, and go straight north. They're hugely flexible.
The flexibility and responsiveness are indeed certainly the big plus points.
Potentially any airport, yes. In practice though you have to ask nicely before anyone will let you fuel up the rocket on their airside tarmac and take off from their runway carrying what, with only a tiny amount of squinting, looks very much like a very large bomb slung under the wing.
People don’t like even the remotest chance of that kind of thing being dropped on top of them!
I doubt you will ever see one of these rockets being prepped on the tarmac at Heathrow or any other major passenger airport. Liquid rocket fuel is often pretty nasty stuff, so you would have all kinds of environmental concerns. Plus most all of your major international airports are near or even have takeoff corridors happening over heavily populated neighborhoods.
Nobody wants to be the major airport that has something happen and the rocket ends up piling into some residential subdivision.
There are a number of less-constricted fields with long runways, including a number of recently retired military airbases. If I recall correctly, Virgin Orbit has an arrangement to fly out of Anderson AFB in Guam. Anderson has runways used for B-52 strikes during the Vietnam War. Plus Virgin Orbit needs to be pretty near the ocean, since they don't want to launch over land, especially somewhat populated land. So even Heathrow would probably be too far from the Atlantic (a couple hundred miles) to really work for Virgin.
Sticking 500kg on a train to Cornwall vs the risks associated with launching near London; the train will win. Airport fees will likely be considerably cheaper too, and easier to schedule.
I'm not so sure - launch delayed due to bad weather yes, it happens, but launch delayed due to bad attitude of Cash's Cronies, well, that's not really going to do it, is it?
Liquid rocket fuel is often pretty nasty stuff
LauncherOne uses LOX/RP-1, so just highly-refined Kerosene. A spill has environmental impacts but there's no nasty hypergolics (though the payload of course might have hydrazine maneuvering thrusters if they're not simple cold-gas, but the main propulsion by weight and volume is just RP-1).
Still, the sort of thing you'd do at a quiet location like Newquay without the hassle of integrating with nonstop freight and passenger traffic at somewhere like Heathrow or Gatwick.
People don’t like even the remotest chance of that kind of thing being dropped on top of them!
People won't always have a say. I mean, if you chose to move next to an airport then you reasonably chose to have larger louder loads arriving and leaving with ever greater frequency, because, well, that's what airports have always done, and the airport was there first.
If we're going to make progress as a nation then the NIMBYs will have to STFU - they're holding back progress far too often and for the most trivial of reasons.
They can also take off from potentially any airport, and the plane can carry the rocket a considerable distance before actually launching, so you can launch into any conceivable orbit rather than being limited to which orbits are reachable from SpaceX's launch sites.
Depending on the whims of the safety elves of whichever nation you take off from, you could probably sell tickets on the plane, if there's still room for seats. Get paid for the launch, the flight, and the peanuts.
I know at least 6 people who'd pay several hundred bucks to be part of a satellite launch, even if their part if "sit still and watch out the window".
I guess the point is that if they could get it working, it would be super cheap to get lighter payloads into orbit and a much faster turnaround time. I would think a lot of companies would be interested in that.
Yes, we have done orbital launch for decades but only for people with government-scale budgets.
Really ?
Because, last time I checked, there are less than five groups that can do that. Ariane is one, Apparently China and India are on good footing, and then there's SpaceX that is favorably viewed to supply the ISS, and Boeing that is going to get its shit together.
Sorry, but every man and his dog is not sending stuff into space. It's not called rocket science for nothing.
For those wondering why a Boeing 747 is used and not another plane...
The Boeing 747 was designed from the word go, to be able to carry and deliver a spare engine to other Boeing 747s elsewhere in the World. Boeing thought ahead and built an extra engine mount into the left wing structure between the other engines and this is what Virgin orbit is using to carry the rocket, and why this plane is used.
...planned its first operational mission in a matter of months.
God forbid that anyone would actually plan for time to fix stuff found in testing and retest, that would just be silly.
I sometimes wonder what Project Managers think testing is for, apart from being that inconvenient obstruction to hitting their deadlines of course.
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