RENTON, Wash. — British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit venture is getting ready to put its LauncherOne rocket system through its first flight test in a little more than a week, the company’s vice president for business development said today.
The first flight will be a captive-carry test, Virgin Orbit’s Stephen Eisele said during the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace conference in Renton. That means an inactive LauncherOne rocket would be attached to a pylon built onto a converted Boeing 747 jet that’s known as Cosmic Girl.
