The Virgin Orbit giant plane drops a rocket over California during crucial flight tests

This morning, Virgin Orbit – the spin-off of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's space tourism company – dropped a small test rocket from a plane over southern California, where it hit the ground. The fall of the rocket on Earth was part of a major flight test for Virgin Orbit that will pave the way for the company's first launch into space later this summer.

This morning's event was called a fall test and was intended to test whether Virgin Orbit's emerging rocket system behaved as expected. For four and a half years, Virgin Orbit has been developing a new small rocket called LauncherOne, designed to place satellites the size of a washing machine in low orbit around the Earth. But unlike most other commercial rockets on the market, LauncherOne does not take off vertically from the ground. Instead, it is transported at high altitude under the wing of an airplane and then fell. He must then switch on his engine and climb into orbit.

This process is a relatively rare type of space travel called air launch and it is the same launch technique that Virgin Galactic uses to bring its space tourist plane to the edge of space. Today's exercise was Virgin Orbit's last great test that Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne had to achieve before the vehicle turned on its engine on a real-world flight for the first time. "This is a very important step for us. It's kind of a development program for us, "said Dan Hart, chief executive officer of Virgin Orbit. The edge.

For today's test, Virgin Orbit has filled LauncherOne with water and antifreeze to simulate the intensity of the rocket when its tanks will be filled with propellants containing liquid oxygen and kerosene. It was then raised to an altitude of about 35,000 feet by its carrier aircraft, a specially equipped Boeing 747, named Cosmic Girl. The emptied aircraft was modified to transport LauncherOne under its left wing. Once the couple reached their target altitude, Cosmic Girl pilot Kelly Latimer released the rocket holding clip, dropping it.

All these steps will be identical until the first launch of the LauncherOne test, which is why today's test was so crucial. The goal was to see if LauncherOne had dropped as planned during a normal flight and if the forces on the vehicle were more or less in line with the expectations of the Virgin Orbit team. "The real data we get from the rocket is in the first five seconds," says Hart. Virgin Orbit recorded videos on the rocket during the test, and the LauncherOne dummy vehicle also had built-in sensors to collect data on its fall. "The rocket will tell us where it is, whatever its movements and how it steals these first seconds, which are very important for an air-blast, in particular," says Hart.

During a real launch test, Cosmic Girl will drop LauncherOne over the water instead of the ground to make sure the lighted rocket does not damage people or property on the ground. In contrast, today's fall test took place at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, and the Virgin Orbit team plans to recover the currently demolished LauncherOne that crashed into the based.

Before today's downfall, Virgin Orbit thoroughly tested the basic components of LauncherOne by testing its main engine, the NewtonThree, as well as "live fire" testing of the vehicle, which is when the engine is on while he is tied up. a complete rocket. The team also conducted "captive transport" tests with LauncherOne, which is when Cosmic Girl flies with the rocket under the wing of the plane without dropping the vehicle.

Now, Virgin Orbit's first test is steaming. Over the next few weeks, the company will continue testing the rocket and putting into practice all the procedures it will need on the day of the flight. By the end of summer, LauncherOne will carry an unknown test payload into orbit. "It's really primarily an engineering flight to understand the performance of the first leg, the second leg and the mission is going well," says Hart.

Once this is done, Virgin Orbit's business operations will begin. Hart said the company had five LauncherOne rockets completed in the factory and that the team had started working on the sixth. The goal is to start sending customers two and a half months after the launch of the first test, but this schedule may change. "Of course, it will depend on the performance we will see," says Hart, "and the fact that we have work to do on the rocket itself, which is always a risk in the first launches."

Today's fall test comes just a day after Virgin Orbit's parent company, Virgin Galactic, announced its intention to become public through a reverse merger with Social Capital Hedosophia, a privately held company. investment led by former Facebook leader Chamath Palihapitiya. Since Virgin Orbit is now separate from Virgin Galactic, the merger does not affect the launch vendor and the company is still privately owned at the moment.