Family-level launch record combining canonical variants, historical missions, public cadence forecasts, and available payload performance specs.
Historical missions are grouped by actual launch year. Forecast cadence uses family-level launch-rate rows.
| Year | Historical missions | Forecast launches |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2 | 0 |
| 2023 | 1 | 0 |
Payload capacity by variant and target orbit when structured capacity rows are available.
| Variant | Orbit | Capacity | Altitude | Inclination | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No performance specsNo structured payload capacity rows are linked to this vehicle family. | |||||
Latest launched missions using variants in this family.
| Mission | Variant | Launch |
|---|---|---|
| Launch 2023-F01 | LauncherOne | Jan 9, 2023 |
| STP-S28A | LauncherOne | Jul 2, 2022 |
| STP-27VPB | LauncherOne | Jan 13, 2022 |
| STP-27VPA |
Canonical variants rolled up into this launch vehicle family.
| Variant | Stages | Missions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
LauncherOne | Not stated | 6 | Retired |
LauncherOne |
| Jun 30, 2021 |
| Elana XX | LauncherOne | Jan 17, 2021 |
| Launch 2020-F04 | LauncherOne | May 25, 2020 |
Upcoming mission rows with announced launch timing.
| Mission | Variant | Announced |
|---|---|---|
No forecasted missionsNo upcoming announced mission rows are linked to this vehicle family. | ||
Virgin Orbit planned to attach the pylon that holds LauncherOne to the Boeing 747’s left wing in the next few days from 2018-06-27.
Spaceflight signed a memorandum of understanding with Virgin Orbit on 2018-06-25 for one flight of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne air-launch system in 2019.
Andrzej Goryca leads an 11-person team helping Virgin Orbit expand manufacturing, supply chain, engineering, and operations while increasing efficiency to trim the cost of LauncherOne.
Stephen Eisele, vice president of Virgin Orbit, expects Virgin Orbit to carry out its first LauncherOne mission in mid-summer after a captive carry test of its air-launched rocket on a modified Boeing 747 about a month earlier.
LauncherOne is designed to provide responsive, reliable, and affordable flights to Low Earth Orbit for small satellites.
The satellites slated to fly on LauncherOne are based closely on the flight-proven hardware used in the GOMX-1 and GOMX-3 missions.
GomSpace purchased a LauncherOne launch from Virgin Orbit to deploy several nanosatellites into a low-inclination orbit in early 2019.