Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit announced Tuesday morning that it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it ceased operations and practically ran out of cash. This comes less than a week after the company laid off most of its workforce.

In an all-hands meeting Thursday afternoon, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart told employees the bad news we had been expecting for a few days. The company will be laying off most of its workforce and cease operations due to a failure to gain funding.

Last week we saw the first major collapse of a recent commercial space company, with Virgin Orbit furloughing its entire staff except for a handful of employees. However, there are some signs of hope, as tomorrow more employees will return for work with more coming later.

It’s been a turbulent week for Virgin Orbit, headquartered out of Long Beach California. The company suspended all operations and furloughed most of its workforce for a week as it sought relief by raising funds to rescue its rocket-flying business, according to sources close to the matter on March 15.

During a 5 p.m. EDT meeting that day, company higher-ups explained that employees could cash in their paid time off as the furlough would be unpaid with a small team remaining in place continuing to work.

During the third quarter of 2022, Virgin Orbit reported a loss of $42.9 million as cash demands continued, with fourth quarter funding coming from an investment arm of its founder Richard Branson’s parent company, Virgin Group.

Notes in the amounts of $25 million, an unsecured convertible note secured in November of 2022, along with another $30 million in senior secured notes in December 2022 and January 2023 gives “first priority” access to assets by Branson’s parent company.

According to CNBC’s Michael Sheetz, Virgin Orbit will be shutting down and furloughing its employees for at least one week while it looks for funding to continue operations.

Virgin Orbit is back at it again with their one-of-a-kind LauncherOne rocket. Wednesday, the rocket will launch mid-air from Virgin Orbit’s custom Boeing 747 with several customer satellites onboard. Here’s everything we know and how you can watch it live.

Virgin Orbit announced a partnership with the Texas-based nonprofit Southwest Research Institute to work on future research missions.

The smallsat launcher owned by Richard Branson announced it will be joining the trend of other space companies and merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). This also comes with some new future plans for Virgin Orbit like turning LauncherOne into a reusable rocket and developing a new LauncherTwo vehicle.

This morning Virgin Orbit is attempting their third flight of the LauncherOne air-launched vehicle. This will be the first operational flight of the vehicle after their successful Demo-2 mission in January.

Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 10:47 a.m. EDT (Drop and Launch)

Virgin Orbit has become one of the newest launch providers to come online with the success of their Demo 2 launch earlier this year. Now their first operational mission is nearing launch readiness by the end of this month.

In a press release Wednesday, Virgin Orbit announced that they were selected by geospatial analytics company Hypersat, and QinetiQ, a defense and security company, to launch 6 hyperspectral satellites into low earth orbit.

Richard Branson’s satellite launcher Virgin Orbit has selected their first Chief Operating Officer to help get the company ready for commercial operations after the success of their Demo 2 mission. This mission successfully deployed 10 NASA payloads from NASA’s Launch Services Program into orbit around Earth bringing them officially online as a company capable to send satellites into orbit.

On the heals of their first successful launch into orbit earlier this month, Virgin Orbit has been selected to send a new payload for the Royal Netherlands Royal Air Force called BRIK-II, a payload named after the their first airplane.

Virgin Orbit attempted its second demonstration launch on Sunday after their first attempt failed shortly after the first stage ignition last year. This time around they didn’t just launch a mass simulator but actual payloads from NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program ElaNa 20 which contained several CubeSats from universities across the nation.

January 7: VO now has a more firm date of Wednesday, January 13.

Virgin Orbit has announced the next test opportunity for its Launch Demo 2 mission from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The mission will test launching a rocket to space from the wing of an airplane.

Virgin Orbit planned to conduct its second Launch Demo mission before the end of the year, but the spread of COVID-19 forced the team to halt pre-flight work this month. After following recommended safety guidelines, the team at Virgin Orbit is back on track, the company shared today. Virgin Orbit’s launch approach involves dropping a space-bound rocket called LauncherOne from the wing of a 747 plane named Cosmic Girl.

Virgin Orbit has added Jim Simpson to its executive team to serve as the launch company’s first Chief Strategy Officer. Simpson filling the CSO role is the latest sign that Virgin Orbit is maturing and preparing for commercial service. VO is scheduled to launch its second demonstration flight in less than two weeks.

After the first Demo Mission of its LauncherOne air launch system ended in the ocean rather than orbit, Virgin Orbit plans to launch Demo Mission 2 on December 19. This will be its second-ever launch attempt, and this time, it will be adding customer payloads to the top of the rocket.

Virgin Orbit will return to flight as soon as late 2020 with a second demonstration mission aimed at dropping a space-bound LauncherOne rocket from the wing of a 747 plane named Cosmic Girl. The second orbital flight test will include NASA payload this time with 11 small satellites onboard for deployment.