Virgin Orbit Completes First-Ever Orbital Launch
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" goes the old saying -- but Virgin Orbit only needed one more try to succeed. Several months after its first attempt to send its LauncherOne rocket into orbit from midair failed in May, Virgin Orbit successfully put a payload of 10 satellites into orbit on Jan. 17.
The successful launch began at 1:41 p.m. EST Sunday, when the Cosmic Girl modified Boeing 747 mother ship took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. About one hour later, the company tweeted out confirmation that Cosmic Girl had made a clean release of its LauncherOne rocket in midair, and the first stage of the rocket had ignited. Four minutes later, that stage completed its burn and dropped off (this was the point at which the previous mission had failed), and the second stage ignited.
Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl 747 veers off as the LauncherOne heads into space. Image source: Virgin Orbit.
Source Fool.com
