• VIRGIN Space Pgm Launches Bunch of US-DOD Packages

    From 25.BZ959@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 3 00:28:17 2022
    XPost: alt.science, alt.politics, alt.politics.republicans
    XPost: alt.military

    https://phys.org/news/2022-07-virgin-orbit-rocket-defense-satellites.html

    A Virgin Orbit rocket carrying seven U.S. Defense Department
    satellites was launched from a special Boeing 747 flying off
    the Southern California coast and streaked toward space
    Friday night.

    The modified jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Port
    in the Mojave Desert and released the rocket over the Pacific
    Ocean, northwest of Los Angeles.

    The launch was procured by the U.S. Space Force for a Defense
    Department test program. The seven payloads will conduct
    various experiments.

    . . .

    "Experiments" eh ? :-)

    In any case, usually when we think of the Virgin space
    effort we think of Branson and "tourist" flights.

    However there IS a secondary, commercial/govt, program
    using similar tech.

    These days even "small" sats can yeild big results, and
    the relative cheapness of the Virgin approach does offer
    a lot of possibilities. If it's BIG, call Musk or ULA -
    but if you can fit it into a small package then keep
    Virgin on speed-dial.

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