{"id":22702,"date":"2023-03-31T01:42:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T01:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bb1d1d1c-f5ae-4982-94f7-b870d99173fa12"},"modified":"2023-03-31T01:42:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T01:42:13","slug":"virgin-orbit-officially-shutters-its-space-launch-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/virgin-orbit-officially-shutters-its-space-launch-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Orbit officially shutters its space launch operations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Virgin Orbit\u2019s days of slinging satellites into space aboard aircraft-launched rockets have come to an end Thursday. After six years in business, Virgin\u2019s satellite launch subsidiary has announced via SEC filing that it does not have the funding to continue operations and will be shuttering for \u201cthe foreseeable future,\u201d per CNBC<\/ins><\/em><\/span>. Nearly 90 percent of Virgin Orbit\u2019s employees \u2014 675 people in total \u2014 will be laid off immediately.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit was founded in 2017 for the purpose of developing and commercializing LauncherOne<\/ins><\/span>, a satellite launch system fitted under a modified 747 airliner, dubbed Cosmic Girl. The system was designed to put 500 pounds of cubesats into Low Earth Orbit by firing them in a rocket from said airliner flying at an altitude of 30,000 – 50,000 feet. Despite a string of early successes \u2014 both in terms of development milestones<\/ins><\/span> and expanding service contracts with the UK military<\/ins><\/span>, LauncherOne\u2019s first official test in May of 2020 failed to deliver its simulated payload into orbit<\/ins><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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According to telemetry, LauncherOne has reached orbit! Everyone on the team who is not in mission control right now is going absolutely bonkers. Even the folks on comms are trying really hard not to sound too excited.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Virgin Orbit (@VirginOrbit) January 17, 2021<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

A second attempt the following January in 2022 however was a success with the launch of 10 NASA cube sats into LEO<\/ins><\/span>, as was Virgin Orbit\u2019s first commercial satellite launch that June. It successfully sent seven more satellites into orbit in January 2022 and quietly launched Space Force assets that July<\/ins><\/span>.<\/p>\n

In all, Virgin Orbit made six total flights between 2020 and 2023, only four successfully. The most recent attempt was dubbed the Start Me Up<\/em> event and was supposed to mark the first commercial space launch from UK soil. Despite the rocket successfully separating from its parent aircraft, an upper stage \u201canomaly\u201d prevented the rocket\u2019s payload from entering orbit. It was later determined that a $100 fuel filter had failed<\/ins><\/span> and resulted in the fault.<\/p>\n

As TechCrunch<\/em> points out, Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson, \u201cthrew upwards of $55 million to the sinking space company,\u201d in recent months but Start Me Up\u2019s<\/em> embarrassing failure turned out to be the final straw. On March 16th, Virgin Orbit announced an \u201coperational pause<\/ins><\/span>\u201d and worker furlough for its roughly 750 employees as company leadership scrambled to find new funding sources. The company extended the furlough<\/ins><\/span> two weeks later and called it quits on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019ve not been able to secure the funding to provide a clear path for this company,\u201d Virgin CEO Dan Hart said in an all-hands call obtained by CNBC<\/ins><\/em><\/span>. \u201cWe have no choice but to implement immediate, dramatic and extremely painful changes.\u201d <\/p>\n

Impacted employees will reportedly receive severance packages, according to Hart, including a cash payment, continued benefits and a \u201cdirect pipeline\u201d to Virgin Galactic\u2019s hiring department. Virgin Orbit\u2019s two top executives will also receive \u201cgolden parachute\u201d severances which were approved by the company\u2019s board, conveniently, back in mid-March right when the furloughs first took effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Orbit\u2019s days of slinging satellites into space aboard aircraft-launched rockets have come to an end Thursday. After six years in business, Virgin\u2019s satellite launch subsidiary has announced via SEC filing that it does not have the funding to continue operations and will be shuttering for \u201cthe foreseeable future,\u201d per CNBC. Nearly 90 percent of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22702"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}