Virgin Orbit’s First Launch of 2021 Is Imminent

The company is targeting Sunday, January 17 for sending its LauncherOne rocket to space from the belly of a 747 jet

“Cosmic Girl,” Virgin Orbit’s spacecraft-carrying 747 airplane, shortly after takeoff during a test run in June 2019. The company’s “LauncherOne” rocket can be seen mounted beneath Cosmic Girl’s left wing.

Gene Blevins *Alamy*

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see Virgin Orbit take another crack at reaching space.

The company is now targeting Sunday (Jan. 17) for Launch Demo 2, its second attempt to reach orbit with its air-launched LauncherOne rocket. (The booster didn’t make it on its first try, which occurred in May 2020.)

If all goes according to plan, Virgin Orbit’s carrier plane, Cosmic Girl, will lift off from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port on Sunday during a four-hour window that opens at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT; 10 a.m. local time in California), with LauncherOne tucked beneath one wing.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

At an altitude of about 35,000 feet (10,700 meters), LauncherOne will drop free and make its own way to orbit. You can follow the mission’s progress via Virgin Orbit’s Twitter feed.

Virgin Orbit had been eyeing mid-December for Launch Demo 2, but complications arising from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic pushed the date to Jan. 10. Last week, the company announced that the target had slipped to Jan. 13. And we got another update on Tuesday (Jan. 12).

“Our Launch Readiness Review is complete, our hardware looks great, and our customers are ready. We’re following through on the last actions identified at our LRR. Our launch is now targeted for NET [no earlier than] Sunday, Jan. 17, with additional windows in January if needed,” Virgin Orbit said via Twitter on Tuesday (Jan. 12).

You can read more about Launch Demo 2 in our preview story from last week.

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American