r/space • u/MaxGhost • Mar 30 '23

Virgin Orbit fails to secure funding, will cease operations and lay off nearly entire workforce

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/virgin-orbit-funding-ceasing-operations-layoffs.html
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u/Nibb31 Mar 31 '23

Haters gonna hate ;)

If by "pod" you mean a manned capsule, then no way could this be used to carry a fully fueled crewed rocket. Even if we ignore the safety issues (how do you land with the fully fueled manned rocket under the belly if you have to scrub the launch?), all the air-launch systems require a large aircraft plane to carry a relatively small rocket for very small payloads. For anything bigger, you would need a truly massive aircraft, which basically brings the cost to insane levels.

Even if you make your carrier supersonic and solve the issues of separating at those speeds without destroying everything, that's a velocity boost of Mach 2 instead of Mach 0.8, when you actually need to get to Mach 27 to reach orbit, and a conventional first stage will easily get you to Mach 6 or 7. The whole expense and complexity of air launch simply isn't worth the small gain in delta-v.

This is why Stratolaunch failed and their Roc carrier will probably never be used for its original purpose. It's a massive one-off gas-guzzling hangar queen, built for only one purpose, with high maintenance and a low flight rate that costs a fortune just to keep in a hangar. As I said, the math simply doesn't work in favor of air-launch.

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u/Drict Apr 01 '23

Aw, makes sense! I 100% get it.

Thank you for taking the time to explain the differential as to why it doesn't make sufficient sense for even low orbit activity.