Virgin Orbit and Rocket Lab are expanding their launch capacities as each company gears up for inaugural missions from countries that they have never flown from.
For Rocket Lab, that’s the United States; for Virgin, that’s the United Kingdom (which has never seen an orbital launch, ever). Rocket Lab said Wednesday that the Electron rocket arrived at Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at Wallops Island, Virginia; Virgin’s Cosmic Girl 747 airplane touched down at the Newquay Airport in Cornwall, southwest England, early evening yesterday. Virgin’s LauncherOne rocket is expected to arrive in Cornwall later this week.
The missions are major milestones for the two companies. Until now, Rocket Lab has exclusively launched Electron from the company’s complex on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. Meanwhile, Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl 747 airplane and LauncherOne rocket have only ever taken off from U.S. soil.
Both are commercial missions. Electron will deploy radio frequency satellites for
