Virgin Orbitis a company within the Virgin Group that provided launch services for small satellites. The company was formed in 2017 as a spin-off of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism venture to develop and market the LauncherOne rocket, which had previously been a project under Virgin Galactic. LauncherOne is an air-launched two-stage launch vehicle capable of delivering 300 kg of payload to low Earth orbit.
On December 30, 2021, Virgin Orbit underwent a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp, and became a publicly traded company (symbol VORB) at the NASDAQ stock exchange. At the SPAC merger Virgin Orbit was valued at $3.7 billion in equity.
LauncherOne made six flights from 2020 to 2023, resulting in four successes and two failures. After the second failure, in January 2023, and an inability to secure additional financing, the company laid off 675 people, or approximately 85% of the staff and suspended operations on March 30, 2023, filing for bankruptcy days later. The company's CEO, Dan Hart, stated that they tried to secure more funding but ultimately decided to close because it was best for the business. Richard Branson is now looking for a buyer to take on the company.
