Virgin Galactic's orbital plans

I get the feeling that longer term that this will be the more commercially successful arm of the operation compared to the human flights.
 
Flyaway said:
I get the feeling that longer term that this will be the more commercially successful arm of the operation compared to the human flights.
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Alas, neither one is assured. Keep in mind that the space tourism side has existed for well over a decade and is still not operational. I was going to events in 2005/6 where people were claiming that regular suborbital tourist flights would be starting by around 2009. The only reason that they're still afloat is because the deep-pocketed investors have not demanded their money back.

As for the orbital side, they're up against a lot of other competitors, some of whom have successful track records and customers lined up. There have been several market studies indicating that there is room in the small launch vehicle market for 2-3 companies, and there are now more than that with rockets. So some of the existing companies are likely to struggle, and the ones that are not already flying are going to have an even tougher time.

Air launch supposedly has benefits over ground launch, but a lot of those benefits are either illusory or not all that great. For instance, it is common to claim that they don't need the ground infrastructure and can launch from anywhere with a runway. Except they do need the ground infrastructure to prepare the rocket and payload. So if it's not at the takeoff runway, it has to be somewhere else, and the takeoff runway is just a temporary base.
 
That sounds ridiculous. Has Cornwall also turned its back to RR, Aston Martin, Business jet aviation or started stoning girls that like too much diamonds...?
 
 
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Flyaway said:
I get the feeling that longer term that this will be the more commercially successful arm of the operation compared to the human flights.
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The funny thing is that SpaceX could destroy BOTH.

- A mature Falcon 9 with ride shares / hitchikers is presently eating into even Rocketlab market share - and Virgin is behind Rocketlab.

- A suborbital Starship that can do intercontinental P2P flights will also do suborbital tourism and there, neither Virgin nor B.O stands a chance, for two reasons.

A- Starship is huuuuuge compared to both tiny things: it can carry either a crapload of passengers or provide immense volume to flip-flop during the zero-g parabola

B- Not only Starship is enormous, delta-v wise there is also a huge gulf.
Virgin, Blue Shepard basically top at 1 km/s, perhaps 1.4 km/s: that's plenty enough to shoot vertically to 100 km and land back.
Starship however has 7 km/s of delta-v: that's what it takes to achieve 8000 miles hops. With so much delta-v the zero-g parabolas can be greatly extended.

In fact Starship flight profile would look like the old Shuttle Abort Once Around: it could nearly turn a complete orbit around Earth. Earth equator being 40 000 km, at 30 000 km per hour this takes 1.5 hour - compare that to B.O or Virgin pitiful 5 minutes. Starship should be able to provide 30 to 50 minutes of zero-G.

Even with an empty mass of 200 mt Starship would have a delta-v of 7253 m/s and this is relatively close from the ISS circling the globe at 7800 m/s - (even if ascending to orbit takes 9200 m/s).

Shave a little empty mass from Starship (let's say -40 mt : down to 160 mt) and it should be able to make an "Abort Once Around" flight profile: circling Earth once taking 1.5 hours.
Remarquably, this would allow suborbital tourism flights starting and ending same place: just like New Shepard or Virgin - with the enormous difference of : "1 hour of Zero-G circling the globe" instead of "5 minutes going up and down to 100 km" !
 
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That's why I think Virgin should emphasize the legacy of their flight profile with that of the supersonic/Hypersonic research test flights of the 1950's 1960's.
Going into space The right stuff way...
 
steelpillow said:
Licensed to space out...

www.bbc.co.uk

Sir Richard Branson gains licence for commercial spaceflights

The US Federal Aviation Administration says Sir Richard's rocket plane can carry paying customers.
www.bbc.co.uk
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www.cnbc.com

Virgin Galactic stock jumps 39% in best day ever after FAA approves passenger spaceflight license

Virgin Galactic announced Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration granted the company the license it needs to fly passengers on spaceflights.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Flyaway said:
That’s a lot of investment to recoup for the small satellite market.

arstechnica.com

Virgin Orbit suddenly has a viable rocket, so what comes next?

“We’re in a different world where we were six months ago.”…
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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They have had a lot of enquiries and reckon the business will support a fleet of launcher aircraft, even at premium prices. That's a lot of market worth investing in.

But yes, it does remain to be seen in the longer term whether the operational flexibility of air launch will justify the cost penalty of horizontal launch orientation.
 
steelpillow said:
Flyaway said:
That’s a lot of investment to recoup for the small satellite market.

arstechnica.com

Virgin Orbit suddenly has a viable rocket, so what comes next?

“We’re in a different world where we were six months ago.”…
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
Click to expand...

They have had a lot of enquiries and reckon the business will support a fleet of launcher aircraft, even at premium prices. That's a lot of market worth investing in.

But yes, it does remain to be seen in the longer term whether the operational flexibility of air launch will justify the cost penalty of horizontal launch orientation.
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What gets me is the initial investment is ten times what Space X & Rocket Lab spent to enter the market.
 
edwest2 said:
So, how many passenger flights per year?
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Yeah about that.. So the FAA has approved of this design, it can carry passangers?

Does it have a re-entry safty track record of Souys.. if god forbid something goes south up there?
An re-entry burning lump of metal recorded on every TV in the World should do wonders(Sarcasm) to Virgin stockmarket and passangers lining up for a ride..
 
N202VG is registered as an experimental aircraft (glider) with the FAA. As far as I am aware you can not sale seats in an experimental category aircraft (i.e. can not be used for commercial purposes). I wonder how they have gotten around this little problem if they sell tickets. I think they got around the first flight by flying all employees of Virgin Galactic. Possibly the training is $250,000 and the flight is free!
 
Dynoman said:
N202VG is registered as an experimental aircraft (glider) with the FAA. As far as I am aware you can not sale seats in an experimental category aircraft (i.e. can not be used for commercial purposes). I wonder how they have gotten around this little problem if they sell tickets. I think they got around the first flight by flying all employees of Virgin Galactic. Possibly the training is $250,000 and the flight is free!
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They have received FAA approval for commercial space flights with passengers.

Virgin Galactic Receives Approval From FAA for Full Commercial Launch License Following Success of May Test Flight

FAA Expands Company’s Commercial Space Transportation Operator License To Allow Carriage of Space Flight Participants Company Details Results of Successful May Test Flight Following Data Analysis Test Flight Program on Track for Flights this Summer Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE)...
investors.virgingalactic.com investors.virgingalactic.com
 

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