
Virgin Orbit rocket reaches orbit, satellites deployed
Jan. 17 (UPI) -- California-based Virgin Orbit made its first successful flight to orbit Sunday using a rocket launched from a plane over the Pacific Ocean, announcing later that the satellites aboard were released successfully. The rocket soared into space at 2:40 p.m. EST after the company's Cosmic Girl aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400, released it from beneath a wing. Advertisement "Payloads successfully deployed into our target orbit!," Virgin Orbit tweeted at 5:29 p.m. "We are so, so proud to say that LauncherOne has now completed its first mission to space, carrying 9 CubeSat missions into Low Earth Orbit for our friends @NASA." Forty minutes earlier, the company tweeted, "We can confirm our NewtonFour upper stage engine successfully relit at the right time and for the right dur...