March 15 (Portal) – Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit (VORB.O) said on Wednesday that all operations would be halted from March 16, and a source familiar with the matter told Portal that the satellite launch company has also almost all of its employees have leave.
According to the source who attended the meeting, Chief Executive Dan Hart told employees in a meeting that the furlough should buy Virgin Orbit time to finalize a new investment plan to get the company out of its financial woes.
Virgin Orbit shares fell 18.8% to 82 cents in extended trading.
The length of the furlough was unclear, but Hart said he would give staff an update by the middle of next week on when they could return, the source said.
In a statement to Portal, the company confirmed the pause in operations but gave no details on the furloughs.
CNBC first reported the news.
Last month, Virgin Orbit said it was investigating the failure of its January mission to launch nine small satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from the coastal city of Newquay in south-west England. The failure of the mission was a major blow to the company and deepened its financial struggles.
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“On the operations side, our investigation is almost complete and our next production rocket with the required modification is in the final stages of integration and testing,” the company said on Wednesday.
Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru and Joey Roulette; Editing by Devika Syamnath
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