Virgin Orbit Plane ends its test flight with a rocket attached

A Virgin Orbit plane took off on Sunday with a rocket under its wing, which constitutes a successful test flight for the company that hopes to provide satellite launch services.

Scientists and companies are launching more and more small satellites for research or communication purposes, but the options for sending them into space are limited. Virgin Orbit, of the Virgin Group, hopes to provide an "agile and affordable" launch service – rockets attached to an aircraft – for satellites weighing 300 to 500 kilograms (661 to 1,102 pounds).

The test flight involved a 70-foot, two-stage LauncherOne rocket attached to Cosmic Girl, a modified 747-400 aircraft. The 80-minute test flight took off and landed from Victorville, California, and included measurements and handling assessments, according to a press release. It was a captive robbery, which meant the rocket had not come out of the plane.

"All members of the flight crew and all our ground colleagues were extremely satisfied with the data of the instruments on board the aircraft, in the pylon and on the rocket itself," said the pilot Virgin Orbit chief Kelly Latimer in a statement. "From my point of view in the cockpit, the vehicles behaved incredibly well and were exactly what we were trained for in the simulators."

The launch into orbit by airplane has been an idea for decades and the Northrup Grumman Pegasus rocket is still launched from a L-1011 TriStar aircraft. But Virgin Orbit hopes to enter an underserved niche. Other rockets are designed for larger satellites. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, previously stated that he did not think that the air launch was bringing enough benefits to be worth it. The smaller satellites previously had to adapt to their launches, said Quartz.

Companies like Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab and Vector Launch are designed to launch these smaller satellites. Spaceflight Industries, a launch company, has already signed a partnership agreement with Virgin Orbit to secure flights on LauncherOne for its customers.

Virgin Orbit will continue capturing Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne in captivity, including a test where it will launch but not launch the rocket, the statement said. He plans his first space shot for early 2019.