Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic has announced it will launch satellites from a stratospheric trans-Atlantic aircraft repurposed as an aerial rocket platform.

Sir Richard Branson's space flight company will use an old Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 aircraft to lift rockets to around 40,000 feet, and act as a moving launch platform for satellites.


The plane, which went into service in 2001 and is "coincidentally" named Cosmic Girl will act as a dedicated launch vehicle for Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne business.

Virgin Galactic said the 747-400 "would have the performance characteristics to hit the payload and orbit sweet-spots in demand for rapid, flexible, dedicated and cost effective small satellite launch". The LauncherOne rocket will be mounted underneath the left wing of the aircraft, in a position used by other 747s for a fifth engine. The aircraft will then release the rocket (at an unannounced height), the rocket will orient itself and then launch its engines sending it into orbit.

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Many other private space companies are working on low-cost launch systems to send small payloads and satellites into orbit, with Orbital ATK and SpaceX already sending supplies to the International Space Station.

Virgin's LauncherOne service would not be the first commercial air-to-orbit rocket system: already operational is the Orbital Pegasus, an air-to-orbit rocket which can carry up to 443kg and which first launched in 1993. Initially developed to use a NASA B-52, and now operating via a L-1011, the Pegasus was last used in 2013 to launch the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph SMEX. Two further Pegasus launches are planned for 2016 and 2017; there are no details of Virgin's first LauncherOne commercial mission.

Virgin Galactic


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Virgin Galactic said the 747-400 would enable cheaper launches than are possible with other systems. Virgin had already announced in September that it would offer launches of 200kg to a sun-synchronous orbit for less than $10 million, with options to launch as much as 400kg. The aim is to undercut traditional rocket launches and provide reliable access to space, even in bad weather -- which the 747 can often fly above, since it can fly above the troposphere. "Air launch enables us to provide rapid, responsive service to our satellite customers on a schedule set by their business and operational needs, rather than the constraints of national launch ranges," said George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic CEO, in a statement. "Selecting the 747 airframe provides a dedicated platform that gives us the capacity to substantially increase our payload to orbit without increasing our prices."

The satellite launching service will be entirely separate to the company's planned commercial spaceflight enterprise. That service is still in development, Virgin Galactic says, even after a fatal crash in 2014 which left one pilot of its SpaceShipTwo craft dead.