A mobile air-launched rocket system to be used in Britain’s first domestic satellite launch could sow the seeds for a globally dispersed rapid-response capability.
Virgin Orbit, part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, plans to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket attached under the wing of a modified Boeing 747, to be flown from a new spaceport in Cornwall on Monday.
Barring delays, it will be the first time a satellite has departed from western European soil.
For now the focus is on commercial payloads from companies such as Space Forge, which is developing in-orbit manufacturing.
But the launch is also seen by many as a blueprint for quicker launches of limited satellite capacity for tactical military purposes, in what planners call “Responsive Launch”.
“Ukraine woke up the world in a lot of ways,” Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Dan Hart told a news conference in southwest England on Sunday.
