Looks like the end of the road.
I never thought it was a great business model.
Branson has managed to waste an astonishing amount of Other Peoples’ Money on his space ventures. I weep when I think of what could have been done for just a fraction of it if it had gone to something sensible. For example, Lynx could have flown.
Of course, Stratolaunch was a boondoggle as well, which also never made any sense. Air launch is a niche market for people who want mission flexibility and single-orbit rendezvous, and there weren’t enough of those people to sustain that costly infrastructure.
Branson has managed to waste an astonishing amount of Other Peoples’ Money on his space ventures.
Rand, are you accusing Sir Richard of being the first Space Socialist?
I suppose somebody had to be first…
What about Europe in general in terms of launchers?
Stratolaunch is still going, but they’ve pivoted to hypersonic testing, not space launch. Still seems like a waste of resources to me though.
Agree, seems like doing it the hard way; applying an answer to the wrong question. That’s giant airacraft is pretty neat, but it’s got to be an increasingly difficult and expensive way to deploy a payload at altitude.
Air launch will do fine when someone builds a launch platform capable of lifting about a quarter million pound upper stage to eighty-thousand feet and hitting Mach 6. That should let it roughly equal the performance of a Falcon 9. Oh, and the launching aircraft needs to be cheap to build and operate.
From what I can tell, the whole point of air launch was to have ‘some’ component be reusable.
This works when everyone else is using wholly one-use stuff (I don’t count Shuttle as that’s ‘rebuildable’ not reusable).
When someone else figures out a way to reuse the first stage? Suddenly it makes no sense.
And so it goes.
I’d always thought that Virgin Orbit wasn’t as bad a biz model as Virgin Galactic.
That said, I’m not surprised it folded. IMHO, it just didn’t have the mass-to-orbit capacity to justify the launch costs.
Combining orbital rockets and aircraft doesn’t double your regulatory burden, it squares it. While limiting your payload severely.
I never even considered the regulatory aspect. That’s a big one.
Good point. I like to compare the regulatory burden to air resistance. You have a similar problem with hypersonic aircraft vs sub-orbital spacecraft. Why fight the headwinds when you don’t have to?
It’s so weird how spending a billion dollars doesn’t get you cheaper space launch. They had 700 employees on payroll
I think a lot of people are in for a shock when they find out spending 10 billion dollars on certain other rocket will also not yield cheaper space launch
It’s not the money, it’s the method.
The US government has been talking for decades about “operationally responsive” launch of small, replaceable satellites during a conflict with a great power. Seems like every time someone tries to build this capability the gubmint has no interest.
Good thing there will never be another conventional war in Europe.
The government did have plenty of interest, 3 of 4 successful VORB launches were paid by DOD and they had 2 more booked for 2023.
They would have paid for a lot more if VORB was actually on a trajectory to survive. The failure was absolutely and entirely on Virgins side here
Thanks. I hadn’t been paying enough attention to Virgin Orbit to know.
There has been a lot of talk about operationally responsive space, but events are making the concept obsolete. The idea made some sense when the military was dependent on small numbers of very expensive satellites. To make it work, you’d need not only boosters built and ready to use on short notice, but also a stockpile of satellites. That isn’t going to happen. What is happening is the transition from small numbers of very expensive satellites to large numbers of inexpensive ones. Beginning today, the transition has begun. Put hundreds of satellites in LEO and no country would have the ability to take out all of them short of EMP or cyber attacks, and there are protective measures for both. Having some replacement satellites on hand is easier with massively proliferated constellations, and you can always ask SpaceX to defer a Starlink launch if needed.
Put hundreds of satellites in LEO and no country would have the ability to take out all of them short of EMP or cyber attacks, and there are protective measures for both.
Or flooding the relevant orbits with orbital debris.
Stratolaunch just landed from 10th test flight:
https://twitter.com/stratolaunch?lang=en
I wonder how many flights it will have in 2023.
I had a fiar amount of contact with the VO people, starting with Steve Isakowitz during his brief stint as CEO. They had the highest executive turnover rate I’ve ever seen in any company. I had a couple of good friends who worked there, as well, but I they went on to better things before this all happened.
I’m not in the business, but I saw Virgin just devouring venture capital because Branson offered 2 names, his own and Rutan. Rutan is an airplane guy, not an orbital guy, when I think the money would have been far better invested with X-Corps making FANTASTIC small scale engines. X-corps went under because they lost investment. I think X-corps could have been a real thing if it wasn’t for the ego driven billionaires stomping on their shit.