Virgin Orbit pauses operations; seeks funding
Virgin Orbit today paused all operations for at least a week, putting almost its entire staff on furlough as it seeks new financing.
Chief Executive Dan Hart told staff that the furlough would buy Virgin Orbit time to finalise a new investment plan, a source who attended the event told Reuters news agency. It was not clear how long the furlough would last, but Mr Hart said employees would be given more information by the middle of next week.
If Virgin Orbit dies, its death will be because a British government agency killed it. The company had planned on launching from Cornwall in the early fall of 2022, at the latest, and then do several other launches in 2022, all of which would have earned it revenue. Instead, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) delayed issuing the launch license until January 2023, about a half a year later, preventing Virgin Orbit from launching for that time and literally cutting it off from any ability to make money. The result was that it ran out of funds.
Obviously the launch failure that followed the CAA’s approval did not help. Nor did the company’s decision to rely on only one 747 to launch its satellites. Nonetheless, the fault of this company’s death can mostly be attributed to a government bureaucracy that failed in its job so badly that it destroyed a private company.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Virgin Orbit today paused all operations for at least a week, putting almost its entire staff on furlough as it seeks new financing.
Chief Executive Dan Hart told staff that the furlough would buy Virgin Orbit time to finalise a new investment plan, a source who attended the event told Reuters news agency. It was not clear how long the furlough would last, but Mr Hart said employees would be given more information by the middle of next week.
If Virgin Orbit dies, its death will be because a British government agency killed it. The company had planned on launching from Cornwall in the early fall of 2022, at the latest, and then do several other launches in 2022, all of which would have earned it revenue. Instead, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) delayed issuing the launch license until January 2023, about a half a year later, preventing Virgin Orbit from launching for that time and literally cutting it off from any ability to make money. The result was that it ran out of funds.
Obviously the launch failure that followed the CAA’s approval did not help. Nor did the company’s decision to rely on only one 747 to launch its satellites. Nonetheless, the fault of this company’s death can mostly be attributed to a government bureaucracy that failed in its job so badly that it destroyed a private company.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Since Virgin Orbit ran out of funds, I think we can see why they didn’t yet have the funds to buy and modify a second aircraft. Had they done so, they probably would have run out of money last year before early fall, when they were scheduled to launch the satellite from Cornwall.
One of the tricky things about starting a company or a new product line is to be sure to have enough facilities to provide the initial service, which would be expected to be for a low number of customers willing to try something new, and to price the product so that customers come to your door and so that you can expand as demand grows. Virgin Orbit rightly thought that one aircraft would be sufficient to start, but they wrongly thought that launching from the UK would be a good PR move.
However Robert’s point is well taken, that had the UK’s CAA issued a launch license in a timely manner then the company most likely would have launched another payload by now and remained solvent.
From the article:
The lesson everyone is learning: doing space business in the UK may cause bankruptcy. Investors are unlikely to be enthusiastic about companies that want to launch there. One of the desirable features of small launchers is an ability for relatively quick service, but with the CAA taking so long to approve a standard launch, that availability for quick launch stops being a sales point for launches from the UK. The UK is likely way behind in the competition as a global player, and it probably does not know it yet. If I could launch in four months with Rocket Lab or in nine months with a UK launch, I am unlikely to choose the UK, because with the former company, I can start generating a revenue stream five months earlier. That is important for any company, not just small or startup companies
An advantage of small satellites is their low cost to produce, low cost to launch, and quick manufacture time. These are three desirable attributes for new companies or small companies that do not have a lot of money and are under schedule pressure to begin revenue service with their next satellite. Even a reasonably well financed company, such as Virgin Orbit, can run out of money if revenues are delayed.
I wish Virgin Orbit luck in finding new funds. Launch is a tough business, and I would hate to lose any of our promising entrants to the business.
Although more than a hundred companies expressed interest in starting smallsat launch services, only about a score of them have shown progress toward that goal, and only about a third of those are launching or on the verge of launching. The growing cadence of SpaceX Transporter launches of multiple smallsats shows that the demand for smallsat launches is continuing to grow. These emerging smallsat launch companies should be able to do well in their field, but only if government does not get in their way.
Frankly, even if the UK handed Branson the keys to a working Star Trek shuttlecraft-Musk would likely STILL beat him.
Richard seems to have caught the bad luck bug that plagued poor Gary Hudson,
Great Britain is doing serious damage to itself, its own space industry, and the space industry in general. Virgin Orbit was badly harmed by a slow bureaucracy, but it was not the only company harmed.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/uks-bureaucracy-blasted-for-delaying-virgin-orbit-launch/
Robert wrote:
Here is another company adversely affected by Britain’s slow CAA, and we don’t know how many others have been, too. From the linked article from the above link:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/01/virgin-orbit-mission-fail-satellite-launches-uk/
So, we have a potential customer that lost a year of business due to CAA delays, possibly taking away a valuable advantage in timing of its entry into the space manufacturing market, but also the start of its revenue stream. The CAA delays are bad for business, and it seems to me that the CAA, which is unwilling to consider changing its ways, may be working for its own purposes rather than for its citizen’s purposes. A responsible governmental regulation bureau would make sure that it is helping, not hindering, its people and their companies. Jobs may flee Great Britain if the CAA does not get its act together, and Britain’s space industry could be just as damaged as it has been for the past half century when its government first abandoned its launch industry.
We have been waiting half a century for the promised superior products that could come from space manufacturing. Government agencies have been more about doing research for the future than helping companies provide goods for the present. But now that having these products seems imminent, we discover that once again government is delaying them.
For half a century, people have been asking what good it is for governments to spend money on space rather than give that money to poor people so that they can continue to not work. The answer has always been that benefits from space were just about to come. Now that they are almost here, governmental bureaucracies are continuing to delay them.
How much cheaper would these exotic materials be once Starship can put the raw materials into space for ridiculously low cost? Yet the US’s FAA can’t be bothered to approve a two-year-old SpaceX application for a test launch.
We humans created governments in order for them to help us, but instead they hinder us, then pat themselves on the back and assure themselves that they have done their jobs well. They haven’t, but the bureaucrats go home at the end of the day with a nice paycheck and a fat pension, and the poor are still worse off.