Virgin Orbit had a successful first commercial launch, meaning there’s now officially another small satellite launch provider in operation with a track record of delivering payloads to space. Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket took off from its carrier aircraft at around 11:45 AM EDT today, and the spacecraft had a successful series of engine fires and stage separations to make there’s of the trip to low Earth orbit.
On board, Virgin Orbit carried seven payloads, including the first ever defense satellite for the Netherlands, as well as cubsats developed by the U.S. Departme of Defense for its Rapid …
