LauncherOne - Virgin Galactic's satellite launching rocket

Автор Salo, 03.10.2010 00:39:15

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tnt22


Старый

Тю! Она ещё и без крыльев! Это профанация. 
 А почему пускают с Боинга а не с самолёта Рутана? ;)
1. Ангара - единственная в мире новая РН которая хуже старой (с) Старый Ламер
2. Назначение Роскосмоса - не летать в космос а выкачивать из бюджета деньги
3. У Маска ракета длиннее и толще чем у Роскосмоса
4. Чем мрачнее реальность тем ярче бред (с) Старый Ламер

tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/07/10/drop-test-moves-virgin-orbit-closer-to-first-satellite-launch/
ЦитироватьDrop test moves Virgin Orbit closer to first satellite launch
July 10, 2019Stephen Clark


A full-scale mock-up of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket falls away fr om a modified Boeing 747 carrier jet Wednesday over the Mojave Desert of California. Credit: Virgin Orbit

A full-scale model of Virgin Orbit's air-dropped small satellite launcher, filled with water and antifreeze instead of rocket fuel, fell away from the wing of a modified Boeing 747 carrier jet Wednesday and impacted on a test range at Edwards Air Force Base in California, a key test that paves the way for the company's first space mission later this year.

Backed by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit aims to carve out a slice of the growing small satellite launch market alongside Rocket Lab and other companies.

Wednesday's drop test was the last major milestone in Virgin Orbit's test program, signaling the start of a transition from rocket development to launch operations, according to Dan Hart, the company's CEO.

"We have a very happy team up here in Mojave," Hart told Spaceflight Now after Wednesday's test. "The flight crew was just grins when they got off the airplane, and there are a lot of high-fives and hugs going on here."

Established in 2017 as a spinoff from Virgin Galactic, Branson's suborbital space tourism company, Virgin Orbit plans to base its early missions from Mojave Air and Space Port in California, then branch out to other airports. Future LauncherOne staging bases could be located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Cornwall Airport Newquay in southwest England, Taranto-Grottaglie Airport in Italy, a location in Guam, and an airport in Japan.

Virgin Orbit's Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, named "Cosmic Girl," took off from Mojave on Wednesday morning and climbed to 35,000 feet (nearly 10,700 meters). Pilots Kelly Latimer and Todd Ericson pointed the jumbo jet upward at an angle of more than 25 degrees, then commanded the release of the LauncherOne vehicle from a pylon under the 747's left wing around 9:13 a.m. PDT (12:13 p.m. EDT; 1613 GMT), mimicking maneuvers they will execute during a real launch.

Four Virgin Orbit engineers were also aboard the carrier jet Wednesday.

On an actual mission, the two-stage LauncherOne vehicle will be filled with liquid rocket propellants. For Wednesday's test, ground crews loaded the tanks with water and antifreeze to simulate the propellant, giving the rocket a weight of about 57,000 pounds (about 26 metric tons).

Engineers planned the drop test to gather data on the aerodynamic loads the carrier aircraft will experience when it sheds the nearly 30-ton rocket. Virgin Orbit also wanted to observe how the instrumented LauncherOne test vehicle performed in the first few seconds after release.

Reports from the 747 flight crew, and a quick-look review of video and telemetry data, suggested everything worked perfectly Wednesday.

The drop test was the culmination of a series of captive carry test flights since November with the inert LauncherOne vehicle under the 747 carrier jet, a former passenger airliner operated by sister company Virgin Atlantic. Ground crews stripped around 30 tons of weight and passenger seats from the airplane to allow it to haul the LauncherOne rocket aloft.

"It's been a long and hard flight test program, as flight test programs often are, and this is our capstone event, so we're pretty happy about it," Hart said. "The system performed really, really well."

"The whole flight went incredibly well," said Latimer, Virgin Orbit's chief test pilot, in a statement. "The release was extremely smooth, and the rocket fell away nicely. There was a small roll with the aircraft, just as we expected. Everything matched what we'd seen in the simulators well — in fact, the release dynamics and the aircraft handling qualities were both better than we expected. This was the best kind of test flight sortie from a test pilot's perspective — an uneventful one."

Virgin Orbit intended the drop test as a full-up practice run to gain confidence as engineers head into the company's first launch campaign.

"Except for the geography — we flew over Edwards — everything else was an exact mission simulation, including having our ground tracking and S-band (telemetry system) going with all the data transmitting," Hart said. "We had a guidance system operating so we could fully understand how the vehicle was operating on the way down."

During LauncherOne's first orbital mission, the carrier aircraft will depart Mojave and head over the Pacific Ocean to release the rocket, which will ignite moments later to climb into space.

The 70-foot-long (21-meter) two-stage LauncherOne vehicle is designed to propel payloads of up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) into a low-altitude equatorial orbit, or up to 661 pounds (300 kilograms) to a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous polar orbit.

Virgin Orbit is selling LauncherOne missions for around $12 million, and has already cinched contracts with NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and several commercial customers.

Drop test signals Virgin Orbit's transition into launch operations
Спойлер
The next time "Cosmic Girl" takes to the skies with a rocket, it will carry aloft a space-worthy version of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne, a vehicle now being assembled inside the company's factory in Long Beach, California.

"This was really the last big non-mission demonstration test, so starting this afternoon, we're in pre-launch mode," Hart said Wednesday.

If everything goes according to plan, Hart said LauncherOne could launch into orbit by the end of the summer,

Engineers finished a series of hold-down engine firings in May to qualify the rocket's propulsion systems for flight.

The NewtonThree engine on the first stage will generate 73,500 pounds of thrust in vacuum, firing for around three minutes on each mission. The second stage's NewtonFour engine will ramp up to 5,000 pounds of thrust, and can be reignited in space to maneuver into different orbits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2_i2GfiULc
At Virgin Orbit's Long Beach factory, technicians are finishing assembly of the first LauncherOne vehicle to fire into space. They plan to mate the rocket's two stages later this month, officials said, then hand over the launcher to Virgin Orbit's operations team.

The rocket will trucked to Mojave for attachment to the "Cosmic Girl" jumbo jet.

"We have a rocket in the factory," Hart said. "It's integrated. It's been through some of the more complex integrated system checkouts. We've still got a little ways to go, but if everything goes well, we'll have it delivered, and we'll start doing wet dress rehearsals, and the kinds of things you do before you actually launch a rocket for the first time."

The wet dress rehearsals will involve filling the rocket with cryogenic fluid for the first time to practice fueling operations.

"Part of our first flight campaign will be to take our flight rocket and do one flight test with cryogenics on-board before launch," Hart said. "We plan to use liquid nitrogen, so we don't have our first time with cryogenics with liquid oxygen. That's the way we kind of ease into that first flight."

Unlike Northrop Grumman's air-launched Pegasus rocket, which burns pre-packed solid propellant, the liquid-fueled LauncherOne vehicle will rely on cryogenic liquid oxygen chilled colder than minus 298 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 183 degrees Celsius).

The LauncherOne engines will consume liquid oxygen in a mixture with rocket-grade kerosene.


Virgin Orbit's first LauncherOne vehicle to head into space is completing final assembly in Long Beach, California. Credit: Virgin Orbit

Cryogenic fluids boil off if they get too warm. Rockets launched from the ground typically have their cryogenic propellant supplies continuously replenished until just before liftoff to ensure the tanks are full, but LauncherOne will be disconnected from its propellant supply before takeoff.

LauncherOne's liquid oxygen tanks are coated with spray-on foam insulation to keep the cryogenic fluid insulated during the climb to the rocket's release altitude.

"Boil-off has been a focus, but we've got the system balanced with the right kind of insulation to wh ere that's not an issue," Hart said.
[свернуть]
Virgin Orbit's first test launch could happen in the next two months, Hart told Spaceflight Now on Wednesday.

"If all goes well — and we do have some data to look at and some more testing to do — we're targeting (a launch) before the end of the summer," Hart said.

There are no customer satellites on the first LauncherOne mission to orbit.

"It'll be an engineering test," Hart said. "We'll have a payload because we do want to verify payload activities, as well as our payload operations, but it's an engineering payload, essentially, for the flight test."

triage

ЦитироватьVirgin Orbit's Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, named "Cosmic Girl," took off from Mojave on Wednesday morning and climbed to 35,000 feet (nearly 10,700 meters). Pilots Kelly Latimer and Todd Ericson pointed the jumbo jet upward at an angle of more than 25 degrees, then commanded the release of the LauncherOne vehicle from a pylon under the 747's left wing around 9:13 a.m. PDT (12:13 p.m. EDT; 1613 GMT), mimicking maneuvers they will execute during a real launch.
ага, а в русскоязычном все заладили перед испытаниями о 9 км. жалко что высоту реальную не привели

Цитировать https://spacenews.com/virgin-orbit-carries-out-successful-launcherone-drop-test/
...
A half-hour later, the plane released the rocket at an altitude of 10,700 meters above a test range at nearby Edwards Air Force Base.
...

Жалко нету фото и видео с места падения 
ЦитироватьOn this test, the rocket simply fell to the ground, impacting in an isolated test area.

Видео сброса
 https://twitter.com/Virgin_Orbit/status/1149024243503394816

tnt22

ЦитироватьLauncherOne Drop Test

Virgin Orbit

Опубликовано: 11 июл. 2019 г.

This week's successful drop test is a huge, huge deal for our team. It represents the last major step of a development program we began in 2015, focused not just on designing a rocket but proving it out alongside the modified 747 that serves as our flying launchpad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWaW3IzVGBwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWaW3IzVGBw (2:13)

tnt22

ЦитироватьTyler Gray‏ @TylerG1998 59 мин. назад
A new FCC permit states that the first orbital test flight of @Virgin_Orbit's LauncherOne rocket should occur NET August 19th.

To be clear: this is *not* a target date. But it does give a good idea as to when VO is planning on flying.

Permit link: https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=93588&RequestTimeout=1000 ...


instml

I got sick and tired of the dutch angle on the PR photo, so I put it in photoshop and rotated it until the horizon was approximately horizontal (about a 40 degree image rotation). For extra measure, I used the Photoshop Content Aware fill to expand it beyond the original image's borders (thin black lines).

This really shows you how extreme the pitch up maneuver is.

(C) NSF
Go MSL!

tnt22

Цитировать Virgin Orbit‏ Подлинная учетная запись @Virgin_Orbit 3 ч. назад
Our payload trailer grants late access to your satellites in a mobile cleanroom environment — just in case you want to say one more good-bye.   Today we're saying good-bye to #SmallSat, but it's not too late to meet our team! Reach out anytime: https://virg.in/SayHello



tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 25 мин. назад

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit: currently completing final system checkouts on first LauncherOne, shipping to Mojave later this month.
#WSBW

tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 28 мин. назад

Virgin Orbit's Hart says the first launch will likely be "mid-fall" after several weeks of checkouts of the vehicle at Mojave and a captive-carry test flight.
#WSBW

tnt22

https://virginorbit.com/launcherone-shaping-up-and-shipping-out/
ЦитироватьLauncherOne: Shaping Up and Shipping Out

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Like a beautiful, 70-foot-long bird made of carbon fiber and science, the time has come for us to push our next rocket out of the nest.

This week, after a very hard drive by our teammates in our Long Beach factory, we waved good-bye to our latest test rocket. Our previous LauncherOne served valiantly through a battery of tests highlighted by several captive carry flights and especially by our flawless drop test. Our latest rocket — which has already been fully integrated, tested, checked, re-checked, analyzed, and triple-checked — is destined for a rigorous crucible of engineering demonstrations and tests of its own. The final demonstration for this rocket will also be the biggest test we've attempted as a team: during that test, we'll fire up LauncherOne's engine in flight and head for space for the first time.



Over the last month, we've subjected the rocket to an array of full-vehicle system checkouts. The work, ranging fr om electromagnetic interference (EMI) tests to guidance and navigation tests, from sequence tests to transmitter checks, has led us to quite literally poke, prod and inspect every aspect of this launch vehicle. And after each test we gathered to ask ourselves the hardest questions and dig deeply into the data. It took some time but in this business it pays to be incredibly thorough — we know full well what the historical odds are for maiden flights of brand new launch systems, and we intend to give ourselves the best chance of success.

Now, we've shipped the rocket to our test site up in Mojave to begin our first proper launch campaign. If you don't come from the aerospace industry, at this point you may be wondering: If the rocket is already fully built and tested, why don't you just launch the dang thing tomorrow?

Well, we can appreciate that all the rocket fans out there are in high anticipation of our first launch — just imagine how excited those of us who work here feel! But the lead up to first flight is not the time to take shortcuts. It's crucial that every element comes together seamlessly. Our stage test campaign taught us how to safely operate the rocket and our ground support equipment, while our flight test campaign improved our understanding of how the two vehicles behave in the air. But as we gear up for our maiden flight, it's the combination of the two that will be most important. The main takeaway from these final few exercises is verification of our integrated launch and flight systems.

Our orbital test flight rocket is currently being installed into a newly built test stand in Mojave, wh ere in the coming weeks we'll run through a number of critical exercises, including loading and fueling with our mobile ground support equipment. We are prepping and practicing, making sure we know how to do everything we could conceivably ever need to do. Then, it's off to the skies — first for a captive carry flight, and then for the launch itself.



So, although it was somewhat of a bittersweet farewell, we're thrilled that this rocket is on its way. We hated to see it go, but we can't wait to see it fly away!

To stay in the loop as Virgin Orbit prepares for our first flight to space, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn — or sign up for our monthly newsletter, chock full of technical updates and small satellite news from around the world.

Чебурашка

Ну так что?
В этом году пуск будет или нет?

azvoz

ЦитироватьЧебурашка написал:
Ну так что?
В этом году пуск будет или нет?


Да какая разница?
Влияние на космоиндустрию не будет никакого.

Какое то значение низкоскоростные , низковысотные  самолетные запуски легких ракет могут иметь исключительно для военных задач - и то в потенции.
Коммерческого смысла ноль.

tnt22

Цитировать2019 Highlights

Virgin Orbit

19 дек. 2019 г.

2019 has been one hell of a year for the Virgin Orbit team. We entered this year with a brilliant team and a lot of cool technology — but there were some really big milestones we still had yet to cross.

We hadn't yet fired our main stage.  We had mountains of simulations for how to fly, but hadn't run though a full mission sequence in software, much less done so with a fully integrated rocket on the test stand. And we hadn't actually taken off with a fully loaded rocket strapped to its wing.  

As of today, we've done all of that and so, so much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRvqVhX-xAhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/PrRvqVhX-xA (2:06)

tnt22

https://virginorbit.com/in-one-year-and-out-the-other/
ЦитироватьIn One Year and Out the Other
DECEMBER 19, 2019
   
2019 has been one hell of a year for the Virgin Orbit crew. We entered this year with a brilliant team and a lot of cool technology — but there were some really big milestones we still had yet to cross. 12 months ago, we hadn't yet qualified an engine for flight. We hadn't yet fired our main stage.  We had mountains of simulations for how to fly, but hadn't run though a full mission sequence in software, much less done so with a fully integrated rocket on the test stand. And we hadn't actually taken off with a fully loaded rocket strapped to its wing.  

As of today, we've done all of that and so, so much more. We aced a series of progressively challenging test flights, culminating in a hugely successful drop test over Edwards Air Force Base. We've completed hundreds of hotfires on our main stage engine, NewtonThree, and hundreds more on our upper stage engine, Newton Four. We've had moments of great triumph after picture-perfect tests — and, as comes with the territory, we've had days where Murphy's law taught us a few new lessons.

At the beginning of 2019, we set some extremely ambitious goals for a company that was barely two years old: to fully qualify our "flying launch site," to convert our Long Beach headquarters from an R&D facility into a high-rate production factory, and to conduct our first demonstration launch. As bold as those goals seemed — each of those three projects historically take companies many years to do — we came damn close to actually pulling it off. Our flying launch site is indeed ready to go, and our factory is now full of flight hardware for a half-dozen rockets and breakthrough automation to help us build more.


Most recently, we delivered a beautiful, flight-worthy rocket to the launch site after qualifying a boat-load of components and fielding a state-of-the-art launch control system. But with the clock winding down on December, we're not quite ready to check off that third and most ambitious goal.

Thankfully, everything that we've accomplished in recent months has placed us in prime position for an imminent orbital demo flight. So here's what to expect in the coming weeks as we push to close out our first launch campaign.

In our most recent update, we mentioned that we were driving through final procedure rehearsals. We're coming up on the tail end of that, having completed multiple propellant load cycles and pressurization testing on the orbital test rocket while working around the clock at our Mojave operations site. We've pushed our system to ensure it is ready for flight, and our team has driven hard to lock down the procedures that keep our operations safe and smooth. With each repetition, our countdown has become more synced and repeatable.


Now, we're getting ready to shift all of our operations to the customized 747 that serves as our fully mobile launch site. Parked at "the hammerhead," a part of the taxiway adjoining the primary runway at the Mojave Air and Spaceport, we'll do the final mate of the rocket to Cosmic Girl and run through our rehearsals again.

In January, we plan to have Chief Test Pilot Kelly Latimer and the rest of our flight crew guide us through one more taxi test with the mated rocket and an additional captive carry test with our orbital flight hardware. Then, we'll be ready to light this candle and conduct our launch demonstration.

For years, everything's been building: our team, our market, our technical expertise, and our enthusiasm. As 2019 draws to a close, we're stronger and smarter than we've ever been before, and feeling ready to rock.

tnt22

https://spacenews.com/virgin-orbit-plans-orbital-launch-in-early-2020/
ЦитироватьVirgin Orbit plans orbital launch in early 2020
by Jeff Foust — December 31, 2019


An inert LauncherOne rocket falls away fr om its 747 carrier aircraft in a July test. Virgin Orbit now says its first orbital launch attempt will take place after a final series of taxi and captive carry flight tests in January. Credit: Virgin Orbit

WASHINGTON — After falling short of plans to begin launches in 2019, Virgin Orbit now expects to perform its first orbital launch attempt in early 2020, a key year for the burgeoning small launch vehicle industry.

In a Dec. 19 statement, Virgin Orbit says it is now in position to perform an "imminent orbital demo flight" some time in early 2020 as it completes rehearsals of launch preparations at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

In that statement, Virgin Orbit said it plans to perform a taxi test of "Cosmic Girl," its modified Boeing 747 aircraft, with a LauncherOne vehicle attached. That will be followed by a captive carry flight where the rocket will remain attached to the plane throughout the flight. "Then, we'll be ready to light this candle and conduct our launch demonstration," the company said.

Earlier in the year, the company had said it planned to carry out that first LauncherOne mission before the end of 2019. Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said at the World Satellite Business Week conference in Paris Sept. 11 that he expected that orbital launch to take place "in the middle of this fall."

"In about six weeks, eight weeks, we will be firing the engines on the next drop test and heading at eighteen and a half thousand miles per hour around the Earth in orbit, beginning to drop off satellites," Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, said in a Sept. 16 presentation at the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Symposium outside Washington.

The company didn't disclose the reason the company missed that schedule for an orbital flight test. It alluded to development issues in its statement, noting there were "days where Murphy's law taught us a few new lessons," but wasn't more specific.

If that initial flight is a success, Virgin Orbit would be ready to move into regular operations relatively quickly. The company said in its statement that it has flight hardware in its Long Beach, California, factory for a half-dozen rockets, and is developing automation "to help us build more."

Virgin Orbit hasn't disclosed a manifest for upcoming launches, but NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative website states that it will fly 10 cubesats on the second flight of LauncherOne, scheduled for no earlier than the middle of February. Another cubesat will fly on a later LauncherOne mission, scheduled for early in the second quarter of 2020, this time out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Virgin Orbit announced in April 2019 it planned to perform flights out of Guam, citing the ability to perform launches to almost any inclination.

Virgin Orbit's plans will start what's likely to be a critical year for the small launch vehicle business, one wh ere dozens of companies are seeking a foothold in a market that most observers believe can support no more than a few vehicles. One of those companies, Rocket Lab, is already regularly launching its Electron rocket, with six successful launches in as many attempts in 2019, a launch rate the company seeks to double in 2020.
Firefly Aerospace is working on its Alpha launch vehicle that the company once planned to launch by the end of 2019. Firefly now expects the first flight of that vehicle no earlier than the first quarter of 2020 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Relativity, which once planned a first launch of its Terran 1 vehicle in 2020, recently said that launch will take place no earlier than February 2021.

Small launch vehicle development extends beyond American startups. Several Chinese companies are working on small launch vehicles. The Indian space agency ISRO plans to perform the first flight of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, developed to compete for dedicated launches of small satellites, in 2020.

The large number of small launch vehicles under development — more than 100 by some estimates — has led to widespread speculation that a shakeout will take place in the near future given the lack of demand for that many vehicles. While one small launch vehicle developer, Vector, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Dec. 13, its problems have been linked to financial and managerial issues specific to the company and not part of a broader industry trend.
[свернуть]

tnt22

https://www.nasa.gov/content/upcoming-elana-cubesat-launches
ЦитироватьUpcoming ELaNa CubeSat Launches

ELaNa 20
Date: Mid February 2020
Mission: Virgin Orbit - Flight 2, LauncherOne – Mojave, CA
10 CubeSat Missions scheduled to be deployed
    [/li]
  • CACTUS-1 – Capitol Technology University, Laurel, Maryland
  • CAPE-3 – University of Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana
  • EXOCUBE – California Polytechnic University, San Louis Obispo, California
  • INCA – New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
  • MiTEE – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • PICS – Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
  • PolarCube – University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado
  • Q-PACE – University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
  • RadFXSat-2 – Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
  • TechEdSat-7 – NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
ELaNa 29
Date:  Early Q2 2020
Mission:  Virgin Orbit, LauncherOne – Anderson Air Force Base, Guam
1 CubeSat Mission scheduled to be deployed
    [/li]
  • PAN – Cornell University, Ithaca, New York



tnt22

Цитировать Virgin Orbit✔@Virgin_Orbit 11:18 PM - Mar 3, 2020

There's something particularly magical about nighttime hotfires in the vast expanse of the Mojave Desert!

Illuminating the test stand here is our NewtonFour engine, which powers LauncherOne's upper stage.



Чебурашка

По слухам, у них лопнул бак прям как у звиздалёта.
И первый пуск - не раньше мая.

tnt22

Цитировать Virgin Orbit @Virgin_Orbit 6 ч. назад

Check out this bird's eye view of Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne taken during a successful taxi test (with cryogenics loaded) last week!




6 ч. назад

As we gear up for our launch demo, big rehearsals like this are crucial to verifying the procedures we've developed to keep our people and hardware safe in those key moments just before takeoff.