Virgin Orbit - Launch Demo-2 Mission patch.
Jan. 18, 2021
ForVirgin Orbit Launch Demo 2 mission, a LauncherOne rocket launched ELaNa 20, from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California, on 17 January 2021, at 19:39 UTC.
Virgin Orbit LauncherOne launches NASA’s ELaNa 20
NASA’s Educational Launch of NanoSatellites (ELaNa 20) mission included 10 CubeSats: PolarCube, MiTEE, CACTUS-1, Q-PACE, TechEdSat-7, RadFXSat-2, EXOCUBE, CAPE-3 and PICS (two CubeSats). The airplane, Cosmic Girl, can take off from and return to multiple launch locations across the Earth.
The aircraft took off from Mojave Air and Space Port, 90 miles north of Los Angeles, carrying the LauncherOne rocket. After the plane released the rocket over the Pacific, the 747 veered upward and away from the launch path.
Upon reaching space, the rocket's second stage moved the satellites into their intended orbit, releasing them in batches of three.
Virgin Orbit rocket reaches orbit
The launch was the first time a Virgin Orbit rocket carried a commercial payload. The company launched a similar rocket once before in May without a paying customer, but it failed to reach orbit after disengaging from the plane.
One of the satellites is the University of Central Florida's Q-PACE experiment, which has video cameras inside to observe how quartz marbles interact with smaller spheres, dust and other materials in the microgravity of low-Earth orbit.
The device is intended to help explain how electrostatic energy causes dust and rocks to clump together, eventually forming planetary bodies or planetary rings like Saturn's and Neptune's.
Virgin Orbit rocket launch
The University of Colorado at Boulder's PolarCube satellite will study weather and storms from space. It was designed originally to fly over the North Pole and South Pole but that orbit couldn't be reached on the Virgin Orbit mission.
Other satellites included two devices intended to inspect other spacecraft in space, two that will measure space radiation and one that will monitor storms.
Related article:
NASA’s ELaNa 20 Mission First to Fly on Virgin Orbit Launch
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/12/nasas-elana-20-mission-first-to-fly-on.html
Related add-on for Flight Simulator X (FSX):
Boeing 747-400 Virgin Orbit for FSX. Image & Add-on by Orbiter.ch Aerospace / Roland Berga
https://simulators.jimdo.com/
Related links:
ELaNa: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/elana/index.html
Small Satellite Missions: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats
CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative
Launch Services Program (LSP): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/index.html
Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS): https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-venture-class-launch-services-contracts-for-cubesat-satellites
Kennedy Space Center (KSC): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/index.html
Ames Research Center: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/home/index.html
Virgin Orbit: https://virginorbit.com/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: Virgin Orbit/NASA/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
