Small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit postponed its first night launch on Wednesday after finding that the temperature of its rocket propellant was “slightly out of bounds.” The company is figuring out when to move ahead with the launch in the next few days.

This mission — called “Straight Up” in homage to the 1988 song by Paula Abdul — is for the US Space Force and will carry seven small satellites for the Space Test Program. It’ll be the fifth mission for Virgin Orbit and the second one since the company went public through a SPAC merger. The launch was originally set to occur out of Mojave, California, during a launch window that opened at 1AM ET, which would have marked the first launch at night for the company.

To get satellites to space, Virgin Orbit — an offshoot of Richard Branson’s space tourism venture Virgin Galactic — uses a somewhat unique air launch approach. The company’s primary rocket, LauncherOne, is designed to take off from underneath the wing of a 747 called Cosmic Girl. The plane flies out over open ocean and carries the rocket to an altitude of 35,000 feet, where the booster is then released and ignites its main engine to propel its payloads into orbit.

After this flight gets off the ground, Virgin Orbit will have some exciting launches ahead. Later this year, the company is slated to launch its system out of Cornwall, which could be the first time a rocket launch takes place from British soil, according to Virgin Orbit.

This afternoon, small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit successfully lofted seven tiny satellites into orbit around Earth, marking the third successful mission for the Virgin Galactic spinoff company. The payloads consisted of various research satellites for the Department of Defense, along with three small satellites from companies SatRevolution and Spire Global.

The launch comes less than a week after Virgin Orbit’s stock began publicly trading for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. Virgin Orbit announced in August its plan to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, making it one of three small rocket launch companies to follow the trend in 2021. On Friday, January 7th, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart rang the Nasdaq opening bell, while the company put a model of its primary rocket, LauncherOne, on display in New York City’s Times Square.

Virgin Orbit is one of many rocket companies that have cropped up in the last few decades, aimed at specifically launching small- to medium-sized satellites into orbit. However, the company’s approach to getting these satellites into space is a bit unique compared to its competitors. Instead of launching vertically from the ground, Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket is designed to take off from underneath the wing of a carrier aircraft, a refurbished Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl. The plane is meant to take LauncherOne up to an altitude of approximately 35,000 feet, where the rocket is then released. In mid-air, LauncherOne ignites its main engine and propels its payloads the rest of the way into Earth’s orbit.

Today’s flight, called “Above the Clouds,” began at 4:39PM ET, when Cosmic Girl took off from a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, where Virgin Orbit has a testing facility. The plane flew out west over the Pacific Ocean, where LauncherOne was released at 5:52PM ET. Flying the plane for this mission was Virgin Orbit’s pilot, Eric Bippert. He was accompanied in the cockpit by Matthew Stannard, or Stanny, a test pilot for the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom who has been seconded to Virgin Orbit. Stanny was the one to initiate LauncherOne’s release from underneath Cosmic Girl’s wing.

Virgin Orbit’s launch occurred on the same day as SpaceX’s second launch of the year, which also sent a crop of small satellites into orbit on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX’s launch, called Transporter-3, hoisted a whopping 105 small satellites into orbit, deploying them one by one into space. Such a flight is often referred to as a rocket rideshare, and it’s another option for small satellite manufacturers to get their payloads into space. Since SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has a bigger capacity than a smaller rocket like LauncherOne, it can carry a bunch of small satellites at once into space, a bit like a cosmic carpool. SpaceX aims to launch at least three dedicated rocket rideshares a year through its Smallsat Rideshare Program.

Rocket rideshares have their downsides, though. For one thing, small satellite manufacturers often need to wait until enough satellites are packed onto one rocket in order to launch. There are also some logistical issues that can come with launching so many satellites at once. Dedicated small launch providers like Virgin Orbit can tailor their missions to just a few customers and can, in theory, provide a quicker route to the launchpad. In fact, Virgin Orbit claims that Spire’s satellite was added relatively last minute to today’s flight. “In just under two weeks, we got them on board,” Tony Gingiss, Virgin Orbit’s COO, said during a press conference ahead of the launch. “Within 24 hours of signing the contract, we already had them integrated into the fairing” — the nosecone on top of the rocket.

Of course, Virgin Orbit will need to up its launch cadence in order to offer a rapid path to space for customers. So far, the company is averaging about six months between launches. But Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart says the company is targeting six launches this year, which would double the launch cadence. Two of those launches are supposed to take place out of Spaceport Cornwall in the UK, established at the Cornwall Airport Newquay.

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced its plans to open up ticket sales to the general public on Wednesday, February 16th, giving people an opportunity to buy a ride on the venture’s spaceplane that takes customers to the edge of space and back.

Tickets will run interested customers a cool $450,000. In order to secure their seat, people must pay a $150,000 deposit and then pay the remaining $300,000 before flight. Virgin Galactic has an application that individuals can fill out on the company’s website.

Ticket sales may be opening soon, but it could be a while before customers get the chance to fly. Virgin Galactic successfully flew its founder, billionaire Richard Branson, to space in July of last year, a major milestone that the company had always planned to jumpstart its commercial operations. The company then planned to fly a follow-up flight called Unity 23, which would carry three members of the Italian Air Force, becoming the first revenue-generating flight. But in September, Virgin Galactic put the flight on pause after finding a manufacturing defect in a company vehicle. The next month, the company gave an update saying that it would not resume commercial flights until the end of 2022 in order to conduct a full “enhancement program” of its vehicles.

On top of that, Virgin Galactic also has a bit of a backlog of customers who have already put down reservations for trips to space. For years, the company has had roughly 600 customers who made reservations for $250,000 during the initial ticketing round, which began roughly a decade ago. Virgin Galactic then opened ticket sales again last August, allowing people who had expressed interest in purchasing a ticket to the company to actually buy a seat. Those tickets also ran $450,000, secured with a $150,000 deposit. Virgin Galactic said it sold 100 of those.

Image: Virgin Galactic

The company has set an internal goal of reaching 1,000 ticket sales ahead of the first commercial flights this year. There’s still plenty of time left in 2022 for Virgin Galactic to sell 300 more tickets.

To get to space, customers will fly in one of Virgin Galactic’s spaceplanes, which take off from the air. These vehicles are carried to an altitude of roughly 49,000 feet underneath the wing of a massive carrier aircraft called White Knight Two. Once at the right height, White Knight Two releases a plane, which then ignites its onboard rocket engine, initiating the climb to space. As the plane ascends to more than 50 miles above the Earth, passengers on board can unbuckle their seatbelts and float about the cabin for a few minutes. Then to get back down to Earth, the pilots shift the spaceplane’s wings and glide down to a runway, a bit like a regular plane.

Virgin Galactic’s primary spaceplane vehicle is VSS Unity, which the company unveiled in 2016 and used to take Branson to space. A newly complete plane, VSS Imagine, was unveiled in March of 2021. The company is currently working on a third vehicle, VSS Inspire.

Today’s news comes a week ahead of Virgin Galactic’s next quarterly earnings meaning, scheduled for February 22nd, when the company will discuss its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2022. The update also coincides with a rebrand for Virgin Galactic. The company’s original logo, a close-up image of Stephen Hawking’s eye, has now been replaced with a purple icon of the company’s spaceship and the company’s name.