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WASHINGTON — Just days after setting a date for its first launch from the United Kingdom, Virgin Orbit announced Dec. 8 that it is delaying that mission by weeks due to technical and regulatory issues.
In a statement to SpaceNews, Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart said the company’s “Start Me Up” mission from Spaceport Cornwall in southwest England, which had been scheduled for early December 14, would be delayed “for the next week”. “
“Although licenses are still pending for launch and for the satellites within the payload, additional technical work is required to establish the health and readiness of the system, and with a very limited available launch window of only two days,” he said, “we have decided that it is our It is prudent to retarget the launch for next week to give ourselves and our stakeholders time to pave the way for complete mission success.”
The company did not elaborate on the technical work required for the flight. The LauncherOne system, including the rocket and its Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, has been at the spaceport since October, and the plane conducted a flight on December 2 as a dress rehearsal of the mission profile for launch.
Spaceport Cornwall, based at Cornwall Airport Newquay, received a spaceport license from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK launch regulator, on November 16. However, Virgin Orbit has not yet received a launch license from the CAA, and the US-based company may also need a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration.
In a Nov. 7 earnings call, Hart said CAA licensing was taking longer than expected for Virgin Orbit, which he said was due, at least in part, to being the first company to go through the new UK launch licensing process. “The good news is that we don’t see any showstoppers or any major issues that we’re working on,” he said later. “But, it’s taking longer than we anticipated and it’s taking a little more effort than we anticipated.”
In a separate statement, CAA argued that it was not to blame for the delay in the launch. “The UK space regulation process is not a barrier to UK space launch,” said Tim Johnson, the CAA’s director of space regulation. “Virgin Orbit said in its statement this morning that there are some technical issues that will need to be resolved before the launch. This is in no way related to the timing of when the license will be issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.”
The announcement of the delay came less than 48 hours after the company advised reporters that it was preparing for a December 14 launch. However, that launch could happen “on or after” December 15 or 16. The company said in a December 6 email.
Virgin Orbit did not estimate a new launch date for the mission beyond “next week,” though an industry source said a launch was unlikely before the end of the year. That would mean Virgin Orbit would end the year with just two launches, after projecting as many as six in early 2022.
The lack of launch activity and revenue has raised fresh questions about the company’s finances. Virgin Orbit said in its Nov. 7 earnings call that it ended the third quarter with $71 million in cash, but raised $25 million from Virgin Group earlier in the month. The company reported an EBITDA loss of $42.9 million in the quarter.
Virgin Orbit said on November 23 that while it had evaluated the possibility of a secondary offering to raise funds, it had decided not to do so due to current market conditions. It added that any subsequent plans to raise capital “will depend on future market conditions.”
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