Virgin Orbit

[Toaster]

Beati Dogu said:

The Virgin Orbit 747 "Cosmic Girl" met up for a formation flight with the Red Arrows over the Mojave desert, California.



This is part of their big North American tour. Their Hawks don't have the ability to refuel in the air, so they had to stop off in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland to get across the Atlantic.


They Royal Air Force are actually seconding a Typhoon pilot, Flight Lieutenant Stannard to Virgin Orbit.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/raf-pilot-sec...

maybe I'm being picky, but wasn't it the red arrows meeting up with the much slower 747

[MartG]

Toaster said:

Beati Dogu said:

The Virgin Orbit 747 "Cosmic Girl" met up for a formation flight with the Red Arrows over the Mojave desert, California.



This is part of their big North American tour. Their Hawks don't have the ability to refuel in the air, so they had to stop off in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland to get across the Atlantic.


They Royal Air Force are actually seconding a Typhoon pilot, Flight Lieutenant Stannard to Virgin Orbit.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/raf-pilot-sec...

maybe I'm being picky, but wasn't it the red arrows meeting up with the much slower 747

Hawk Mach 0.84 ( though it can hit 1.2 in a steep dive )
747 Mach 0.855

[Toaster]

MartG said:

Hawk Mach 0.84 ( though it can hit 1.2 in a steep dive )
747 Mach 0.855

Hmm the Hawks traveled to the US.. and met up with the 747.

[Eric Mc]

MartG said:

Hawk Mach 0.84 ( though it can hit 1.2 in a steep dive )
747 Mach 0.855

The 747 was designed with quite a high subsonic cruise Mach limit. This was because it was assumed, at the time it was being designed (1965-67), that in later life 747 operators would be in competition with operators using supersonic airliners. It has quite a severe sweepback for an airliner of 37.5 degrees.

In reality, the supersonic airliner never really transpired - with the exception of Concorde - and the steep rises in fuel prices from 1973 onwards meant that 747s, for fuel economy reasons, were never regularly flown at their maximum design cruising speed.

[MartG]

Virgin looking to add a 3rd stage to their LauncherOne - giving capability of 50kg payload to Mars

https://spacenews.com/virgin-orbit-to-add-extra-ro...

[MartG]

Sir Richard Branson is selling a stake in Virgin Galactic to raise $500m to prop up his other businesses including Virgin Atlantic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52596273?fbcli...

[Beati Dogu]

Maybe he should have done that before he got the begging bowl out for already hard pressed taxpayers.

[Petrus1983]

I’m very confused by the Virgin Galactic valuation. $2.32bn for an enterprise that hasn’t really achieved much seems very much hyped.

[Beati Dogu]

Virgin Orbit are intending to do their first test launch at the weekend, over the Pacific Ocean.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-527...

[Beati Dogu]

The rocket launch failed soon after release, but the aircraft is OK.

"We've confirmed a clean release from the aircraft. However, the mission terminated shortly into the flight. Cosmic Girl and our flight crew are safe and returning to base."

- Virgin Orbit

[MartG]

[Beati Dogu]

It seems the rocket ignited OK, but broke up soon after that. More info to come of course.

[MartG]

Scott Manley video on the launch failure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIXsMv1jkzY&fe...

[Gandahar]

I think air launched missions are a road to nowhere,

It's just adding complexity with not the incentive for a large cheap payload to offset that.

It's a road to nowhere when you have Electron and SpaceX

[Eric Mc]

One thing you can do with an air launcher is move the "launch site" to its optimal launch position on earth. No ground based launch sites have their limitations.

[Eric Mc]

Video of actual launch from Virgin -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNJib8lJY1E

[Beati Dogu]

Virgin Orbit are doing a second air drop launch at the moment. No livestream, but they giving constant updates on Twitter.

It was released ok and the first stage engine fired up this time. It got through max-Q, the first stage burned to duration and the stages separated as planned. The fairings have been jettisoned and it has now reached orbit. They’ll coast for about 30 mins before releasing the payload.

Sounds like they’ve made it at last.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Sunday 17th January 20:19

[MartG]

Good to hear

[MartG]

Live from Cornwall right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Co18HcyqHk

( though the actual presentation is poor compared to SpaceX so far )

[seabod91]

She is off.