Spaceflight Industries, the US-based rideshare organiser and launch services provider, announced on 25 June that it had signed an MoU with expectant launch provider Virgin Orbit for a dedicated LauncherOne mission in 2019. Signing with Virgin Orbit now means that Spaceflight’s backlog of dedicated rideshare missions covers two of the main upcoming smallsat launch providers – Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit – as well as the more entrenched industry players offering Vega (Arianespace), PSLV (ISRO/Antrix) and Falcon 9 (SpaceX) launches.
Spaceflight has history of booking rideshare slots in spare space alongside large LEO and GEO launches conducted by ISRO/Antrix, Arianespace, NGIS (formerly Orbital ATK), Roscosmos and SpaceX. However, recently the company has made efforts to expand its offering by buying whole launches on the smaller rockets that have been entering the market. Spaceflight also bought a whole SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in 2015. This mission to sun-synchronous orbit has been delayed from its planned launch date of late-2017, but is now expected later this year.
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne is scheduled to conduct it’s maiden fight later in 2018, before entering commercial service by the end of the year.
