Success
Above the Clouds
Communications
Virgin Orbit(VO)Commercial
LauncherOne
LEOorbit
Mission to a 500 km circular orbit inclined at 45 degrees carrying eight R&D satellites from US government agencies with communications and navigation experiments as well as two Earth-observation nanosatellites from Polish company SatRevolution.
Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 10:52 PM
Replay
Links
Mission details
Orbital Attempt
#6,185
VO Mission
#4
Pad Launch
#4
Location Launch
#49
Designator
2022-003
Launch Window
NET
Jan 13, 2022, 10:52 PM
Schedule Changes
1 update
Lift Off
10:20 PM
Window Open
12:50 AM
Window Close
LauncherOne Specs
LauncherOne is a two stage orbital launch vehicle developed by Virgin Orbit since 2007. It is an air launch to orbit rocket, designed to launch "smallsat" payloads of 300 kilograms (660 lb) into a Sun-synchronous orbit, following air launch from a carrier aircraft at high altitude.
Length
16 m
Diameter
1.6 m
Launch Mass
30 t
Thrust
327 kN
LEO Capacity
500 kg
SSO Capacity
300 kg
Launch Cost
$12M
Reusable
No
Maiden Flight
2020
Fastest Turnaround
5mo 13d
Total Launches
6
Successful
4
Failed
2
Consecutive Success
0
Maiden flight: May 25, 2020
Social Flight Log
- Jan 13, 2022, 11:57 PM
Launch success.
Source - Jan 13, 2022, 4:37 PM
Updating the window
Source - Jan 11, 2022, 11:33 PM
Now targeting January 13.
Source - Dec 29, 2021, 12:37 AM
Updated launch time.
Source - Dec 23, 2021, 9:23 PM
NET January 12
Source - Dec 21, 2021, 1:17 AM
Launch now planned in January 2022.
Source - Dec 9, 2021, 3:07 PM
New launch date/time per marine space closure notices, to be officially confirmed.
Source - Nov 30, 2021, 5:51 PM
Mentioning of this launch in USCG local warning messages has been removed.
Source - Nov 11, 2021, 3:18 AM
Launch date and window updated per USCG marine space closure notices.
Source - Nov 9, 2021, 2:06 PM
New mission name “Above The Clouds” confirmed.
Source
Air launch to orbit
Total Launches
51
Total Landings
0
Coordinates
35.0594, -118.1517
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which plans to provide launch services for small satellites. The company was formed in 2017 to develop the air-launched LauncherOne rocket, launched from Cosmic Girl, which had previously been a project of Virgin Galactic. Based in Long Beach, California, Virgin Orbit has more than 300 employees led by president Dan Hart, a former vice president of government satellite systems at Boeing. Virgin Orbit focuses on small satellite launch, which is one of three capabilities being focused on by Virgin Galactic. These capabilities are: human spaceflight operations, small satellite launch, and advanced aerospace design, manufacturing, and test
Founded
2017
Administrator
President: Dan Hart
Total Launches
6
Successful
4
Failed
2
Pending
0
Consecutive Success
0