[Music]
this is the Mojave Air and Space Port
the scrap of desert outside Los Angeles
it's where Richard Branson's Virgin
Galactic has set up shop to test its
tourist space planes but today we're
gonna get a tour of another vehicle
it's a Boeing 747 that's been turned
into a mobile launch pad in order to
send rockets to orbit and mid-flight
we're here to meet Kelly Latimer the
main pilot for Virgin orbit it's a
sibling company of Virgin Galactic that
hopes to launch satellites into space
instead of tourists but they want to do
it in a way that sets them apart from
most of the satellite launching
competition out there instead of
launching rockets from the ground virgin
orbit launches them from under the wing
of a giant airplane or they will if a
whole lot of tests go right first
[Music]
this is launcher one the rocket that
Virgin orbit has developed it's designed
to fly mountain underneath the wing of
the 747 and then at around 35,000 feet
the pilot flips a few switches and this
big red clamp releases the rocket it
falls away and then it ignites this
engine to climb into space this way of
getting to space is often referred to as
air launch it's not a new concept either
both Northrop Grumman and a company
called straddle launch used similar
systems air launch is also the same
basic way Virgin Galactic gets its space
plane into the sky too still this type
of space travel is pretty rare but it's
got its upsides there is just a raw
performance advantage that we get this
is will Pomerance vice president of
special projects at virgin orbit and the
company's first employee if you think
about two rockets racing their way to
space one starting at Cape Canaveral and
one starting under the wing of an
airplane while the one that Cape
Canaveral which is a great facility but
it happens to be at zero feet above sea
level and zero miles per hour and our
airplane is already giving us some
altitude in some speed there's also some
flexibility you get when your launch pad
can move
so if there's bad weather in one
location we can go somewhere else if
we've got five different customers that
want to go to five different orbits
physics is going to dictate we want to
launch them from five different places
and instead of having to build five
different launch sites we just pick up
our whole launch system and we fly it
anywhere it wants to go you know it's a
Boeing 747 it's about as transportable
as you can possibly make it
the 747 that virgin orbit uses is an old
passenger aircraft from Virgin Atlantic
aptly nicknamed cosmic girl but the
plane looks a tad different these days
the entire coach section has been
completely gutted all of its seats
removed and the overhead bins taken out
yeah we basically pulled the entire main
deck interior out to get rid of weight
so we get rid of about 50,000 pounds so
what it gives us is the lighter weight
the better performance we get the
first-class cabin is also no longer
outfitted for rich travelers instead the
upstairs has been transformed into a
small Mission Control so that engineers
can oversee missions during flight
Kelly's job mostly revolves around
flying the plane and she's got a lot of
experience with that already as a
lieutenant colonel in the Air Force she
flew numerous military aircraft as she's
got experience with 747s to having flown
the airplane that carried the Space
Shuttle as well as a flying Observatory
called Sofia
this mission may start off like a
regular 747 flight but it ends much
differently once the rocket gets fully
fueled we'll come on board the aircraft
start the engines taxi out to the end of
the runway and take off just like a
conventional airplane if anything were
to go wrong we want to be able to
jettison it at any point so we have a
specific routine to get us out over the
water then when it comes time to drop
the rocket Kelly maneuvers the plane
pitching it up at a 30-degree angle that
Orient's the rocket towards space and if
everything is at the right altitude and
speed the rocket drops so at that point
the Rockets on its own we pull off to
the right and meanwhile the rocket
counts to five and then lights its motor
and goes off to space so basically you
ditch it and run pretty much yeah Kelly
does have to make a few accommodations
flying a plane with a rocket attached
when the rocket is fully fueled it'll
add an extra fifty thousand pounds
putting more weight on the left side of
the plane that means they'll have to add
more fuel to the right wing to offset
the imbalance but up until now Kelly's
been flying launcher one without any
fuel in it making the vehicle something
of a ghost so what does it feel like for
you whenever you're flying knowing that
you have essentially a rocket or missile
attached to your plane what's funny is
when we flew the first time with the
rocket attached there actually was so
little effect for the rocket being there
that we were like you know if we didn't
have this panel in front of us and
somebody telling us that there's a
rocket on board I'm not sure we would
actually know the launcher one rocket is
only designed to put small payloads into
orbit those about the size of a washing
machine
Virgen orbit is capitalizing on the
trend towards smaller and smaller
satellites thanks to cheaper consumer
electronics and the standardization of
satellite hardware it puts them in
competition with launch providers like
rocket lab vector relativity and more
than a hundred other startups focused on
sending small satellites to space virgin
orbit is still deep in the midst of its
testing program farther out into the
desert it's testing its small rocket
engine at this firing range and there's
a lot of complexity that comes from
lighting the engine up in
when you're launching things from the
ground you know if you need power for
your system you go and you plug it into
electrical outlet and if you need fuel
you plug it into a pipeline when you're
launching from an airplane you've got to
build all that stuff so that a it
physically fits on board the airplane
and then be it's it's safe and it's
regular totally appropriate to carry it
on board an airplane
so while virgin orbit is testing its
engines it's also testing cosmic girl
the company routinely runs test flights
and recently they've been flying with
launch or one attached soon the company
will fill up the rocket with water to
give it a more realistic weight and
they'll drop it just to see if it falls
like the engineers think it will when
that test happens Kelly will be testing
out how to deploy a launcher one for the
first time two switching on a series of
buttons and levers that cause launcher
one to fall from the wings so they see a
setup to drop you go left to right and
then once we're done we go close hook
back to lock there you go of course
there's always the possibility that
rockets don't behave like we think they
will and Kelly is prepared for that too
do you have contingency plans in case
that dropping doesn't go well or heaven
forbid you know it ignites when you're
still carrying it yep we do and that's
the reason for having the control setup
here and really not have it tied to a
lot of computer logic or data so at any
point we can let it go so we basically
will have some what we call go no-go
parameters or aboard or knock it off
criteria things start to go out of
limits to where it's trending in a bad
way at any point in our flight we simply
unlock arm and then release virgin orbit
is aiming to do its first test launch in
2019 but there's still a lot of testing
to do first including that crucial drop
test but once that happens kelly is
excited for what comes next
that's when the build-up to the actual
launch is gonna get really exciting
really fun we'll find all sorts of stuff
we'll work through you know and make our
way through it but yeah the actual take
off knowing that we're gonna drop the
rocket for launch is going to be
very thrilling one last small question
do we know you do have a idea of what
the first payload will be with
yeah that's no information I know I know
nothing actually the payload I don't
care I'm just I just gonna drop just I
just the bus driver
I just take it to its bus stop and let
it go
[Laughter]