Virgin Orbit was a company within the Virgin Group that provided small-satellite launch services, formed in 2017 as a spin-off of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to develop and market the LauncherOne rocket. LauncherOne was a two-stage vehicle, air-launched from a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, designed to deliver up to 300 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Virgin Orbit became a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq exchange in December 2021 through a merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp, valued at 3.7 billion dollars at listing. LauncherOne flew six times between 2020 and 2023, with four successes and two failures; after its second failure in January 2023 and an inability to secure further financing, the company laid off its staff, suspended operations in March 2023 and finalized a Chapter 11 bankruptcy sale of its remaining assets in May 2023.
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