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It took an incredible amount of planning and hard work to make the day so easy
The contractor was about to launch commercial satellites from the LauncherOne rocket after the craft had been successfully associated with a custom jumbo jet, which would serve as a flying launch site.
LauncherOne was "copied" for the first time with Virgin Atlantic's "Cosmic Girl" converted aircraft in Long Beach, California, marking a milestone for the project.
Once fully operational, Cosmic Girl will pilot LauncherOne at an altitude of 30,000 feet where the thrusters will engage, taking it into space.
Virgin Orbit's CEO, Dan Hart, an aerospace veteran with over three decades of experience as an engineer and leader on Delta programs, missile defense and other Boeing programs, said: "It took an incredible amount of planning and ar work gently.
"Modeling and simulations are invaluable tools, but nothing beats conducting real operations with real hardware.
"The fact that we have embarked a rocket on this road, placed it under the aircraft, integrated the system and verified that everything works together for the first time in one day always surprises me.
"In the traditional aerospace world, it would have taken weeks."
The rocket is 70 feet long, twice the length of a London bus, and has a speed of propagation that is 20 times that of sound, which equates to 17,000 mph.
Weighing 57,000 pounds, the equivalent of 25 small family cars, the LauncherOne payload will carry satellites that can be as small as bread and as big as a home refrigerator.
The LauncherOne rocket will be able to travel at 20 times the speed of sound (Image: Virgin Orbit)
Satellites will broadcast everything from the Internet, even to the most remote areas, to advanced weather monitoring systems that will help monitor climate change.
The rocket is equipped and ready to fly on Cosmic Girl in the near future.
A full series of test flights will include a number of "captive flights" robberies, during which LauncherOne will remain attached to the aircraft, collecting a terabyte of valuable aerodynamic performance, structural load, and other data.
Several other rockets are already under construction at the Virgin Orbit rocket factory, located less than one mile from the Cosmic Girl site on the tarmac at Long Beach Airport.
The rocket LauncherOne is "twinned" with Cosmic Girl (Image: Virgin Orbit)
The LauncherOne rocket is twice as long as a London bus (Image: Virgin Orbit)
LauncherOne will be used to launch commercial satellites (Image: Virgin Orbit)
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group began its research on small satellite launch technology less than 10 years ago, and began work on its innovative system launched by 747 in early 2015, initially as a department of one of the sister companies of Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic.
The company already has hundreds of millions of dollars in contract launches for customers ranging from NASA to the US Department of Defense to new start-ups.
Sir Richard wrote on Virgin's website last year: "During my recent visits, the team of superstars composed of men and women from the Virgin Orbit design and manufacturing center to Long Beach, California, has shown me the fantastic material that they have built, tested and optimized. Improved.
"The management of our space companies by General Manager George Whitesides and the team's progress in assembling LauncherOne helped us recruit Boeing veteran Dan Hart to head Virgin Orbit as President.
Richard Branson and the Virgin Orbit Team (Image: Virgin Orbit)
"We are all very happy to welcome Dan into the Virgin family.
By offering inexpensive and frequent services in space, the team is revolutionizing the small satellite market in a promising space economy.
"And so it makes sense to support their growth by giving them their own business."
In a speech earlier this month, Sir Richard said Virgin Galactic was "about to realize its dream" of manned spaceflight, the billionaire entrepreneur planning to be on one of the first rockets.
He told CNBC: "We should be in the space of here a few weeks, not months, and then we will be in space with myself in months and not years. . "
His stated goal of commercial space travel puts him in direct competition with Space X and fellow billionaire Elon Musk.
Mr. Musk is working on the Falcon Heavy, which will be the world's most powerful rocket when it is ready later this year, with which he hopes to transport people into space and possibly colonize Mars.
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