Virgin Orbit - a new player in the market for low-cost suborbital launch vehicles

The company Virgin Orbit, as you can already guess from the name, is one of the divisions of the Virgin Group Corporation , the permanent head of which is Sir Richard Branson. The company was founded about a year ago, but so far few have heard of it. It is engaged in the development of technology for delivering light satellites to the low orbit of the Earth.

The launch of the satellites is as follows - the aircraft takes a small rocket to an altitude of about 11 km, from where it starts and goes into space, putting satellites into orbit. The rocket operates on refined aviation kerosene, and not super-expensive cryofuel, so the design of the engine can be as simple as possible.

But the fact that the technology of launching spacecraft itself is not innovative does not detract from the significance of what the company is doing. And they plan to minimize the cost of putting satellites into orbit. Over the past few years, many competitors have emerged in the field of commercial space exploration, so now the main task is to offer customers a service at the lowest possible price.

This is an entirely achievable goal, in any case, the Virgin Orbit management says so. For $ 10 million or so, a company can put a load of half a ton into low Earth orbit. A little, but some satellites do not weigh more than 500 kg. If you need a better payload, you can use the services of SpaceX with its heavy and super heavy launch vehicles.



By the way, the technology offered by Branson’s company is not new. Since 1997, the Orbital ATK Pegasus XL has been working on this principle. True, Pegasus XL is taking off less and less, since the launch cost is about $ 45-55 million, and this is about low orbit. SpaceX offers a slightly more expensive multi-ton satellite output service. But the rise in price is now no more than 30%, so some companies choose SpaceX.

If the Virgin Orbit really can put the satellite into orbit for $ 10 million, then the company will obviously have a whole line of customers.

Generally speaking, the need to launch small loads into low orbits occurs much more frequently than multi-ton units into deep space. But it so happened that scientific organizations or commercial companies that needed such launches either had to pay a lot of money for their small cargo, which was sent “first of all”, or else pay less, but wait for their turn - that is, when the “window” appears in the launches of bulky goods for rich companies.

Now everything is changing, and as far as it is possible to understand, different niches are forming in the ecosystem of the “space gallop”. In the near future, even not very rich organizations will be able to bring their loads into Earth orbit - this can be done by both scientific organizations and commercial enterprises. The time interval for the realization of the order for launching a satellite will also be greatly reduced. Now an organization that has “staked out” a place for itself, having submitted an application for launch and paid for it, waits about two years before the launch itself. There are quite a few people who want to send their cargo into space, so a line is formed.


Tests of the Virgin Orbit rocket engine

But for both scientists and businessmen, waiting is a luxury that is not permissible. For example, various start-ups can very much depend on the successful launch of their satellite into orbit. And waiting can just ruin a company that had to wait too long.

It is safe to say that the demand for launches is growing very quickly. This means that the proposal must respond accordingly. And it reacts: dozens of companies appear on the market (some of them are simply not written), who are trying to develop the least expensive solution for launching satellites into space. There are companies like Virgin Orbit that plan to send cargo from Earth to orbit in two stages. There are others. Some companies are trying to develop a technology that would allow "print" on a special 3D-printer as the rocket body, and their engines. In this case, the creation would be worth the minimum.

Whatever it was, but the management of the company should hurry to keep up with competitors - as mentioned above, they are becoming more and more. It is clear that not everyone will survive, but only those who can "make an offer that cannot be refused." This offer includes the price - if it is less than the average for the market, it will attract customers.



By the way, Virgin Orbit was separated into an independent unit from Virgin Galactic - another Branson space company. Its main task was considered to be “space transport” - that is, sending tourists to the low orbit of the Earth. In order to stay in the conventional space of a few minutes, many wealthy people are ready to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars.


Wiyalm Pomeranz at one of the Virgin Orbit production sites

But after the SpaceX company began work, Branson and his colleagues realized that sending satellites into space could also be profitable, and considerable. Supervised by Virgin Orbit, William Pomeranz, who previously held the position of manager at Virgin Galactic. Pomeranz worked at NASA, he worked for five years at the XPrize Foundation, where he managed Google Lunar XPrize.

It is interesting that initially the representatives of the Virgin asked the Orange to answer the question - can the satellite launch system from the intermediate flying device be profitable. Initially, William Pomeranz considered that he could not. But over time he changed his mind. The fact is that more and more companies have become interested in the possibility of launching miniature satellites, the mass of which is minimal.

Such satellites began to create both scientific organizations and commercial enterprises. For the above reasons, many companies could not launch their satellites into space - someone due to lack of funds, someone else - due to the inability to get a place on a launch vehicle on time.

By the way, SpaceX had the idea of ​​sending cargo into space using a light launch vehicle. It would have been driven by a single Merlin engine . With it, one could launch a cargo of several hundred kilograms in space, no more. But this idea did not receive further development. Largely because the company focused on the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon ship. With the stop of this project, a real chance has appeared for other companies, including SpaceX.

Pomeranz became the first employee of the new company. A little later, the state began to increase, expanding to 40 people. Today, hundreds of people work here, and some of them are specialists from Boeing, SpaceX and other companies engaged in the aerospace industry and related sectors.



Now the site on which the company operates is full of LauncherOne rocket parts - there are fairings, a body and other elements. The rocket consists of two stages. As for the first, its diameter is 1.8 meters, and the launch is performed using the engine Newton Three. The second stage is driven by a smaller Newton 4 engine. There is a fuel tank in the stage, which supplies the engine with fuel. According to the developers, the rocket can put a half-ton cargo into low orbit.

The advantages of the rocket are a relatively large number of different places from which you can send a rocket, which is less dependent on weather conditions than large rocket carriers, the ability to output satellites to different orbits using a mobile launch system.

How promising is the small satellite market?

So far it is not entirely clear, but Virgin Orbit believes that a third of customers are companies that have never carried out their own satellites into orbit. Another third - those who had previously worked closely with space and now decided to reduce their operating costs, plus a third - government organizations. Pomeranz and his boss Richard Branson believe that now there are all opportunities for companies that launch cargo using small missiles.

This year the company is not going to carry out commercial activities. But the next one plans to carry out about a dozen launches. And about 12-24 more starts will be carried out in 2020.

Despite the fact that the work has not yet begun, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been invested in the company. The main investors are Branson himself, as well as the state investment fund from Abu Dhabi Aabar. Plus, there is another $ 4 million from DARPA.


Fully assembled second stage installed in the Mojave Desert, California, USA

But what about profitability? According to Pomeranz, his company will be profitable, provided that there are approximately 12 launches per year. To reduce the cost of creating rockets and the launches themselves, the company intends to use printing on specialized printers. With their help, Virgin Orbit hopes to develop both corps rockets and rocket engines. In addition, new technologies will help reduce the production time of one rocket from 10 months to 2-3.

Pomeranz believes that simultaneously with the preparation of the first flight, it is necessary to immediately prepare for the second one. When customers hear about the readiness of the first rocket, they should know that the second is about to be sent into space. Space delivery of goods into orbit should be similar to a pipeline, so that customers always have the opportunity to send cargoes exactly when they need it.



As for the competitors, they are really becoming more and more. Now, for example, the development of the space industry in China is proceeding rapidly. In particular, a space startup from Beijing called OneSpace launched the first private rocket in China. Start was made this week. This is a small suborbital rocket, whose height is about 9 meters.

These are also suborbital rockets, which are sent to a height of about 100 km from the surface of the Earth.

As for SpaceX, Ilon Mask said that he hopes to further reduce the cost of launching the launch vehicle, and this reduction will be radical - up to $ 5-6 million. At the moment, SpaceX has stopped work on modifying the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, current version of Block 5 . The released resources can be used for the development of other areas.