Virgin Orbit set to launch satellite from Britain on Monday

LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – The first orbital satellite which will go into space from western Europe will be launched on Monday from Cornwall, in the southwest of England.

Virgin Orbit, owned in part by billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic airlines, plans to use a modified Boeing 747 with a rocket attached under the wing for the first time outside the company’s US base.

Once the plane is about 11,000 meters above sea level, the rocket will lift off over the Atlantic, launching small satellites from seven clients into orbit in what is known as a horizontal launch.

The mission is scheduled to take off on Monday at 22:16 GMT, but this depends on the weather and other programming and system conditions. Virgin Orbit has announced that there are alternative dates for the middle and end of January.

A ground test known as the “wet general rehearsal” was carried out successfully on Thursday, which involves refueling the rocket within a special security zone, those responsible for the launch reported.

The idea of launch a rocket from a passenger plane The converted spacecraft, pioneered by Orbital Sciences in the 1990s, is designed to offer a flexible, low-cost path to orbit as the number of small satellites in Earth orbit grows.

The mission highlights an emerging small launch sector just as Europe faces a deepening crisis due to the Ukraine war cutting off access to Russian Soyuz vehicles, as well as Ariane 6 delays and grounding. of the Vega rockets after a failed launch last month. (By Sarah Young and Tim Hepher. Edited in Spanish by Javier López de Lérida)