Sharecast - Shares in Virgin Orbit tanked on Tuesday after the LauncherOne rocket released by the company’s Boeing (NYSE:BA) 747 suffered an anomaly, leaving it unable to reach its target orbit.
The company, based in California, said that extensive telemetry coverage for the flight allowed for the collection of an enormous quantity of data during the mission, allowing its engineers to start their analysis immediately upon detection of the anomaly that led to the failure.
Virgin Orbit said it has initiated a formal investigation into the source of the second stage failure, to be led by aerospace veteran Jim Sponnick.
The company expects to return to Spaceport Cornwall for additional launches and said it was in "active discussions" with key government and commercial stakeholders in the UK to start planning mission opportunities for as soon as later this year.
Chief executive Dan Hart said: "Given our four previous successful missions, which have proven our technology, our team’s deep understanding of the LauncherOne system from massive amounts of previously collected flight data, and the ample telemetry data that was collected characterising the flight and the anomaly, I am confident that root cause and corrective actions will be determined in an efficient and timely manner.
"We are continuing to process and test our next vehicle per our plan and will implement any required modifications prior to our next launch."
Founded by Branson in 2017, Virgin Orbit began commercial service in 2021. The company’s LauncherOne rockets are designed and manufactured in California and are air-launched from a modified 747-400 carrier aircraft that allows Virgin to operate from locations all over the world.