9 CubeSat Missions Comprising 10 Total Spacecraft Are Set To Fly On LauncherOne

The folks at Virgin Orbit are telling us that pending some additional tests and operations, the launch window for our Launch Demo 2 mission will open on Saturday, December 19th, with an opportunity to launch from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM Pacific.

They also have a similar launch window available on Sunday, December 20th, with further opportunities available in the following weeks, if needed.

In the first Launch Demo, VO demonstrated the entire prelaunch sequence, flyout, rocket separation and unpowered flight, engine start and first stage powered flight. "Our team is fired up to build on those steps and to demonstrate the rest of the rocket system, including our upper stage. Again, we’re poised to collect terabytes of data from LauncherOne as it flies, further enhancing our knowledge and proving out our system’s capabilities," they said.

They say that they're taking another big first step with this mission too, as they will be carrying customers’ satellites on board for the first time.

9 CubeSat missions comprising 10 total spacecraft are set to fly on LauncherOne during Launch Demo 2, which will also mark the 20th mission in NASA’s Educational Launch of NanoSatellites (ELaNa XX) series. NASA is using small satellites, including CubeSats, to advance exploration, demonstrate emerging technologies, and conduct scientific research and educational investigations. Nearly each payload on this flight was fully designed and built by universities across the US.

We'll keep you updated...

FMI: https://virginorbit.com