Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart discusses the burgeoning recreational space market ahead of Richard Branson’s launch just nine days ahead of Jeff Bezos.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit suspended all operations and furloughed most employees on Wednesday, about two months after the aerospace company suffered a rocket failure while attempting to send multiple satellites into space, a spokesman confirmed to Fox Business.
It is unclear how long the vacation will last. Employees retain their benefits and can take advantage of paid time off while the company develops a plan for the future, which they hope to announce by next week, the spokesman said.
In this undated photo provided by Virgin Orbit on Monday January 9, 2023, Virgin Atlantic Cosmic Girl, a converted Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 that will carry a rocket, is at Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport in Newquay , England, parked. … (Virgin Orbit via AP/AP Newsroom)
Virgin Orbit, one of several companies competing to commercialize the space industry, uses a modified Boeing 747 dubbed “Cosmic Girl” to launch a rocket in the air, which then launches its payload into orbit.
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The company attempted to launch nine satellites from the UK in January, but the LauncherOne rocket failed at some point during the firing of its second stage engine.
Virgin Orbit uses a technique called Air Launch, which launches its 70-foot, 57,000-pound LauncherOne rocket at an altitude of 35,000 feet under the wing of a 747-400 jet named Cosmic Girl, rather than from a traditional launch… (Virgin Orbit/Fox News)
The company is continuing its anomaly investigation from the January flight.
“We expect to be able to return to flight once this investigation is complete,” a Virgin Orbit spokesman said Wednesday. “We are in the final stages of this… and incorporating the changes and lessons learned from it into our next rocket, which we plan to fly later this year.”
| ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| prep | VIRGINS ORBIT | 1.01 | -0.05 | -4.72% |
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CNBC originally reported the news of the company’s pause in operations on Wednesday.
Virgin Orbit’s shares are down about 83% over the past year.