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On May 26th, Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl rocket failed on its debut flight.
Here's a quick shot from takeoff. pic.twitter.com/7nt1u58ogs
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
Good morning, world! Today is a momentous occasion for the Virgin Orbit team: operations for the first orbital launch demonstration of our LauncherOne rocket are well underway. ? pic.twitter.com/P51cYc1nFi
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
The jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles and flew out just beyond the Channel Islands, where the drop occurred.
The booster was released from under the wing of one of Sir Richard Branson’s old jumbo jets which had been specially converted for the task.
The rocket was supposed to fall for a few seconds before the first of its two stages ignited and hurtled it down the coast toward the South Pole for insertion of its demonstration payload into a low Earth orbit.
The purpose of the flight was to gather data on every step of the launch process rather than to have a useful satellite in orbit; the demonstration payload was described as an inert mass and the intended orbit was very low to avoid contributing to the problem of space junk.
As such it only partially fulfilled its objectives, because it failed to reach orbit at all.
How the setback will affect the company was not immediately clear. It has six additional rockets under construction in its factory.
“The team’s already hard at work digging into the data, and we’re eager to hop into our next big test ASAP,” the company tweeted. “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.”
Virgin Orbit’s goal is to try to capture a share of the emerging market for the launch of small satellites.
It’s not clear at this stage precisely what went wrong but the firm had warned beforehand that the chances of success might be only 50:50.
“Test flights are instrumented to yield data and we now have a treasure trove of that. We accomplished many of the goals we set for ourselves, though not as many as we would have liked,” said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart.
“Nevertheless, we took a big step forward today. Our engineers are already poring through the data. Our next rocket is waiting. We will learn, adjust, and begin preparing for our next test, which is coming up soon.”
After taking off from Mojave, Cosmic Girl will fly due southwest to our drop point just south of the Channel Islands. Once we reach the drop point, we'll enter into a loop that we call the "racetrack" as we wait for final go/no-gos. pic.twitter.com/mg3Bdc1Hek
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
The interesting part is that Virgin Orbit’s launch technology differs greatly from the conventional ground-based launching.
The way that we support and launch our rocket is quite different from vertically launched platforms, so here's a handy guide to the various trailers that make up our mobile ground support equipment. pic.twitter.com/SvZJLfAvRG
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
The first test-launch was 5 years in the making, starting back in 2015.
Since opening the doors to our Long Beach facility in 2015, a tremendous amount of work has gone into designing, manufacturing and testing LauncherOne, an air-launched vehicle built specifically to serve small satellite customers around the world. pic.twitter.com/jND6CfCmDh
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
And since the chance for success was 50:50 the flight was not livestream.
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 — but stick around and refresh this feed for updates as the action happens. pic.twitter.com/pKzlStVnNi
— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020
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Looks more like a failed cruise missile test.
The Elites ARE one BIG Failure…they all love “Virgin” flights….for a holiday on the Epstein Islands….
Elites in general have always been ‘Legends in their own minds’. They ” Lie, cheat and steal” to gain power and always will do. We are living in another era of peak sociopathic stupidity, and history records that at such End Times the elite and their dynasties are culled.
I look forward to the cull, HH :)
Fully prepared, ready & waitin’…..let them bring it on! They are nothin’ but demonic chickenshit cowards….1 percent is not very much…
Waiting until the time is right is important. The harvest can then begin. :)
I have always thought that ‘survival bunkers’ are easy targets. The destruction and capture of Maginot Line fortresses are examples of such fortifications being foolhardy.
Strange name.cosmic girl
Looks like Trumps ‘super-duper’ missile had a set back.
Elon Musk > Richard Branson.