This launch represents the opening of a new era in the British space industry and new partnerships across industry, government, and allies.

Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which provides launch services for small satellites. On January 17, 2021, their LauncherOne successfully reached orbit, and successfully deployed 10 cubesats.In the early hours of 10th January 2023, the company confirmed that their first UK launched rocket had experienced an 'anomaly' and had failed to reach its planned orbit. The rocket was launched from a modified Boeing 747 aircraft. The company was formed in 2017 to develop the air-launched LauncherOne rocket, launched from Cosmic Girl; this tandem 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 was 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.On 30 December 2021 Virgin Orbit became a publicly traded company (symbol VORB) at the NASDAQ stock exchange. Virgin Orbit underwent a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp. II to become public; from its SPAC merger, Virgin Orbit raised $228 million or less than half than the $483 million it expected to raise. In August 2021 when the SPAC merger was announced, Virgin Orbit estimated it needed $420 million in cash, starting in the second half of 2021, to reach positive cash flow in 2024. Virgin Orbit held an “opening bell” ceremony at Nasdaq January 7, 2022 to celebrate going public.A few months before going public, Virgin Orbit was owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, which had invested about $1 billion into Virgin Orbit up to A

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