When it went bankrupt in March, Virgin Orbit officials still hoped to save the company through a takeover. But all hope is over for the rockets dropped by a 747: other actors in the American space sector have shared the key elements of Virgin… for a pittance.
The misfortune of some…
We take it all away
Technicians have begun stripping red paint from the 747 “Cosmic Girl” parked at California’s Mojave airport. Soon, Stratolaunch’s gray and white livery will adorn the four-engine specially equipped with a pylon and a special release device. This is one of the most spectacular acquisitions following the bankruptcy of Virgin Orbit in March.
The company had placed itself under the protection of “Chapter 11” of the American bankruptcy law, which gave it a good chance to erase its debts and start afresh… But for that, it needed an investor. capable of paying off part of the debt and showing medium-term financial guarantees. No one showed up (it must be said that Virgin Orbit was losing a lot of money), the company whose headquarters and production site were based in Long Beach was purely and simply dismantled.
Distribution and low prices
The big 747, therefore, was awarded to Stratolaunch. This entity already operates the Roc, the largest aircraft in the world, and is preparing to carry out the first campaigns of its small Talon hypersonic rocket planes (unmanned). It is quite possible that the Talon-A, the smallest, will be adapted very soon to fly under the wing of the ex-747 of Virgin Orbit! The latter will probably no longer be called “Cosmic Girl”…
Like other key assets, the aircraft was purchased at a rock-bottom price: $17 million! And companies in the US launcher sector have sniffed out good deals. Rocket Lab has thus recovered – for 16.1 million dollars – a large part of the production site in Long Beach with the very expensive specialized machine tools, the startup VAST (Launcher) has taken control of the engine test site at Mojave for $2.1 million. Firefly Aerospace announced on June 16 that it had acquired “everything else” in a real accounting lot, for 3.8 million dollars. Tools, rocket engines, maybe even the coffee machines in the break room… There will be nothing left of Virgin Orbit.
The end of rocket drops?
The history of airborne rocket launches is complex, and very few actors have truly succeeded. Will Northrop Grumman’s small Pegasus rocket (now retired due to lack of orders) remain the family’s only success? Virgin Orbit carried out six airdrops/launch operations with LauncherOne, with two failures on the clock… And it was not so much reliability that sank the project as the lack of launch rate associated with improbable profitability: Virgin Orbit spent several tens of millions of dollars. However, several start-ups are working on new concepts, which are still not very mature.
Useful reminder: Virgin Orbit, which no longer exists, was independent and had only its origin in common with the other company in the space sector, Virgin Galactic. The latter is also losing a lot of money, but it is still in place and will soon be talked about with new flights of its tourist rocket plane VSS Unity.
Source : SpaceNews
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