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Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings (VORB.O) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday after the satellite launch company failed to secure the long-term funding needed to help it recover from a January rocket failure. The Long Beach, California-based company lodged the filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware seeking a sale of its assets after announcing the layoff of roughly 85% of its 750 employees last week. “At this stage, we believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward ... Virgin Orbit went public in 2021 through a blank-check deal, raising $255 million...

Suborbital space tourism provider Virgin Galactic announced Thursday (July 14) that it will build its next-generation Delta class space planes at a manufacturing facility in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix. The company, which just last week announced a deal to build a new set of carrier planes for the Delta spaceships, said that the newly leased facility could produce up to six spaceships a year and will bring hundreds of jobs to the area. Construction is underway on the facility, which is adjacent to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, and it should be ready to go in 2023, Virgin Galactic said...

On Wednesday (March 30, 2022), at a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Budget, Sanders raised an issue that’s been a regular part of his political platform for many years: wealth distribution. “Anyone who thinks we do not have an oligarchy right here in America is sorely mistaken,” he said. “Today in America, multibillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson are off taking joy rides on their rocket ships to outer space.” Sanders appeared to be citing the three billionaires’ spaceflight companies: SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, respectively. All three U.S.-based businesses have played a large part...

MOJAVE, Calif. — Two people were killed and four others injured Thursday by an explosion at a Mojave Desert airport that is home to pioneering civilian rocket programs, authorities said. Wreckage of equipment and vehicles could be seen in an overhead view of the site broadcast by a KCAL-TV news helicopter. A sign on a truck behind a bunker had the name Scaled. Scaled Composites is the Mojave-based builder of SpaceShipOne, the first private manned rocket to reach space. "Reports are two fatalities and at least four critical injuries," said Kern County fire Capt. Doug Johnston, who was not at...

Virgin Galactic said on Thursday it is delaying its commercial space travel service to the fourth quarter of 2022 and will not conduct another planned test flight this year.Virgin Galactic said "commercial service is now expected to commence in Q4 2022." Shares in the company fell 13 percent in afterhours trading.The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on September 2 had barred Virgin Galactic from flying its SpaceShipTwo pending completion of a report into the flight of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane that carried British billionaire Richard Branson to the edge of space.Branson was among six Virgin Galactic employees who took...

After thirteen years of development and setbacks — including a fatal crash, technical difficulties and frequent delays — Richard Branson's private space program, Virgin Galactic, is soon ready for live action, at least according to Branson himself. “We are hopefully about three months before we are in space, maybe six months before I’m in space,” the founder of Virgin Galactic, which is part of Virgin Group, told an audience at Nordic Business Forum in Helsinki, Finland last week. When he received an audience question about who will reach Mars first, he or Elon Musk, Branson made clear he is not...

It’s no secret that the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace) has become immensely lucrative in recent years, nor the fact that it has become intensely competitive as a result. To illustrate, one needs to look no further than the top three NewSpace companies in the world right now: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Between these three companies, all founded by billionaires with similar visions, a new space race has begun. In recent months, the race has intensified as Jeff Bezos announced that he would be going to space on the inaugural flight of the New Shepard rocket. In response,...

Thrill-seeking billionaire Richard Branson has reached space aboard his own winged rocket ship in his boldest adventure yet. The feat vaults the nearly 71-year-old Branson past fellow billionaire and rival Jeff Bezos, who is planning to fly to space in a craft of his own nine days from now. With about 500 people watching, including Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren, a twin-fuselage aircraft with his space plane attached underneath took off in the first stage of the flight. Aboard were Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.—Richard Branson is scheduled to travel to the edge of space Sunday in a flight aimed at spurring a new, multibillion-dollar space-tourism industry. The flight, originally scheduled for 9 a.m. ET, was delayed 90 minutes on Sunday because of weather overnight at the launch facility in New Mexico. The launch is now scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET. At that time, a highflying Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. airplane is expected to take off from the Spaceport America facility near Truth or Consequences. The plane, called the VMS Eve, will carry the spacecraft VSS Unity, which will include Mr....

The company’s spacecraft, named VSS Unity, was carried up to an altitude of about 44,000 feet by a carrier aircraft called VMS Eve. The aircraft then released the spacecraft, which fired its rocket engine and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound. After performing a slow backflip in microgravity at the edge of space, Unity returned through the atmosphere in a glide, landing back at the runway of Spaceport America in New Mexico that it took off from earlier. Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft Unity is designed to hold up to six passengers along with the two pilots. The...

Virgin Galactic was to perform their first human spaceflight of their VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle from Spaceport America, just south of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, today. The spaceship and crew took off at 10:24 EST (15:24 UTC) firmly attached to their WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft from the runway at Spaceport America. The combined aircraft climbed to altitude before Unity was released at 11:15 EST (16:15 UTC). After release, Unity lit its engine but aborted one second into firing. The ship and pilots executed the proper procedures and brought Unity to a successful, unpowered descent and landing. The crew is safe...

Engine technology being developed for a British space plane could also find its way into hypersonic aircraft built by the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is studying hypersonic vehicles that would use the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which the English company Reaction Engines Ltd. is working on to power the Skylon space plane, AFRL officials said. "AFRL is formulating plans to look at advanced vehicle concepts based on Reaction Engine's heat-exchanger technology and SABRE engine concept," officials with AFRL, which is based in Ohio, told Space.com via email last month. ... SABRE burns hydrogen and oxygen....

'A UK company which hopes to build a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines believes its novel Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on earth to no more than four hours away. That ambition was given a boost this week by ESA, which has acted as an independent auditor on the Sabre test programme. "ESA are...

A revolutionary UK spaceplane concept has been boosted by the conclusions of an important technical review.The proposed Skylon vehicle would do the job of a big rocket but operate like an airliner, taking off and landing at a conventional runway. The European Space Agency's propulsion experts have assessed the details of the concept and found no showstoppers. They want the next phase of development to include a ground demonstration of its key innovation - its Sabre engine. This power unit is designed to breathe oxygen from the air in the early phases of flight - just like jet engines -...

If there is one British space project that has the capacity to inspire at the moment then surely it is Skylon.

Launching into orbit could become a little easier and cheaper, thanks to a futuristic space plane that looks like it might have flown straight out of a Star Wars film. The European Space Agency and British government have awarded $1 million euros ($1.28 million dollars) to Reaction Engines Limited (REL), a British aerospace company, as part of a multi-million dollar development program for an air-breathing rocket engine that could power the Skylon spaceplane. The unpiloted, reusable vehicle is designed to take off from an airstrip, deliver cargo into orbit and return to the same runway.

Virgin Galactic announced in May that it would be partnering with NASA to work toward high-speed, high altitude point-to-point travel for commercial airline passengers. The plan is to eventually create an aircraft that can fly above 60,000 feet (the cruising altitude of the Concorde) and carry between 9 and 19 people per flight, with a cabin essentially set up to provide each of those passengers with either Business or First Class-style seating and service. One other key element of the design is that it can be powered by next-gen sustainable fuel for more ecological operation. In some ways, this project...

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center partnered with Antelope Valley Hospital, the City of Lancaster, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company, and Antelope Valley College to come up with innovative ideas to solve possible shortages of critical medical equipment. One of their first efforts was to build a prototype oxygen hood that has now proven to work for doctors at Antelope Valley Hospital. The production of 500 will begin this week at The Spaceship Company’s Faith Facility in Mojave. The device... is an oxygen hood for COVID-19 patients exhibiting minor symptoms and will minimize the need for these patients to use ventilators....

Virgin Galactic is preparing for passenger flights by conducting test runs of its spacecraft, the VSS Unity. The vehicle first breached the U.S. Air Force-defined boundary of space on Dec. 13, reaching an altitude of 51.4 miles (87.4 km). Both of Unity's spaceflights are still below the Karman line, which the International Astronautical Federation uses to define the start of space, at 62 miles (100 km). Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has said he hopes to fly on July 16, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the first mission to land humans on the moon. After...

In a decade, high speed travel via outer space will represent an annual market of at least $20 billion and compete with long-distance airline flights, UBS says. UBS expects the broader space industry, which is worth about $400 billion today, will double to $805 billion by 2030. Long haul airplane flights that are more than 10 hours in duration would "be cannibalized" by point-to-point flights on rockets, UBS said. UBS believes there will be very lucrative ramifications from the space flight efforts currently led by Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin. A lengthy UBS report published on Sunday found...