Virgin Orbit in Mojave
Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, mated to its Boeing 747 aircraft and with support equipment nearby, on the flight line at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. A first orbital launch will take place in the "coming weeks," CEO Dan Hart said Feb. 4.

Virgin Orbit and the British government are continuing efforts to begin flights of the company’s air-launch system from an English airport by early 2022 despite challenges on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...